Stucco, marmorino, polished plaster, Venetian plasters, Italian plaster

The Legendary Carlo Scarpa

I've always intended to spend some time visiting what I could of the works of Carlo Scarpa, in particular to admire the stucco work and pick up some ideas.  In October I was fortunate enough to do just that: I spent a week in Venice with my good friend Sam, a decorative painter who's a fantastic applicator of marmorino too.  We were able to visit the Olivetti showroom, the Fondazione Querini-Stampalia and the Castelvecchio in Verona.

To say that I returned inspired would be a serious understatement.  What excites me most about how Scarpa used these materials was just how contemporary the finishes look.  Although they're ancient techniques, when you compare how they're applied on a Scarpa building with how they are used elsewhere in Venice, they are very different.

One finish that Carlo Scarpa seemed to use a lot - and it's not immediately obvious in photos of his work, but you can spot it straight away when you see his work in the flesh - is encausto, a technique that involves applying stucco lucido over a coarse intonachino.  This is the finish used on the ceiling in the Olivetti showroom, where it ties in perfectly with concrete and stone that's used nearby.  It is also used in the Castelvecchio on panels like this one.  Again, Scarpa used this encausto technique in the Querini-Stampalia, however here the intonachino is much coarser, and the craftsmen used much more force when applying the final layers, so there is a lot more visible granulation.

Another technique that Carlo Scarpa used a lot was spatula-applied stucco lucido, especially on ceilings - a finish of which I was not a huge fan until recently - but when you see it in this setting, it just works so well.  There is virtually no variation in colour whatsoever, which I've always preferred.

It's amazing that although these buildings were completed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, their design really catches you, they are so unique.

The trip has brought one thing home to me: there will never be a wall finish that has the same range of design possibilities as marmorino.  It is truly timeless.

Killiney House

In August we finished this project for O'Donnell and Tuomey, which is undoubtedly one of the finest architectural practices in Ireland.

The design for the dropped ceiling cloud in the kitchen of this house gives the space real identity.  Modification of the light really works with the classic marmorino finish to accommodate the ceiling installation.

Pictures to the right and also on our website.

Eileen Gray at the National Museum of Ireland

Eileen Gray's work mesmerises me.  I have a copy of the book Stewart Johnston wrote on her in 1978, and I spent ages trying to get the maximum detail out of each photograph by holding it as close to my eyes as possible.

But now there's a better system - visit the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks in Dublin where there is a permanent Eileen Gray exhibition.

The brochure introduces it this way:

In May 2000 the Director of the National Museum of Ireland, Dr Patrick F Wallace, succeeded in purchasing a substantial collection of Eileen Gray's work, with major support from the Department of the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, thus fulfilling one of her greatest wishes, to have her work displayed here in her own country.  The collection includes the chrome table from E1027, personal memorabilia, lacquering tools, carpets, chairs, tables, screens, lanterns, her portfolio and reviews of her work.  It allows us access into the world of an Irish designer who found fame and spent most of her life abroad, but who never lost touch with the land of her birth.

We like Decowell Interior Decoration

While I was down photographing the job in Whitehead, I met Ruth from Decowell Interiors.  The first thing she told me was that she loved marmorino and had worked with stuccatore in Moscow.  As you can imagine, this certainly captured my interest.

Ruth trained at the Van der Kelen College of Decorative Arts in Brussels - I've seen some of her work around Belfast and wondered who'd done it.

So... it seems Belfast is not the decorative-artistic wilderness I'd first imagined!

We like Soon Interiors

We've recently been doing some projects for Soon Interiors, based in Belfast.  They have some very seriously cool work under their belt.  They're so good to deal with, as well.

We've had two projects to complete for them, almost back-to-back.  The first one was a very big curved hallway in a private house, finished in grassello lucido - another one of those jobs where you spend about three weeks working out exactly how you're going to do it because it was one hit of about one hundred square metres, on a curve.  It was also very awkward to scaffold.  But the finished article made all the headaches worth while.

The design of the project is quite traditional, whereas Soon usually seem to go in a contemporary direction.  But the overall look perfectly suits the house, and the client.  The area we were involved in was basically a large curved hallway with a marble staircase that followed the contours of the wall.  They installed a glass spiral with a handrail on top, which runs up the centre of the staircase.

We had to come up with a colour in grassello lucido to match the marble.  We found that by compressing slightly more heavily than usual when trowelling, the tone of the movement darkened in places somewhat - perfectly mirroring the variations in the marble.  Finally, we applied a layer of encaustic wax - a very traditional way of finishing.

Best of all, the client's over the moon.

The second project we're doing for Soon is being finished as we speak.  It's a marmorino exterior to retail premises.  The finish is graphite directionally pitted marmorino, which will be treated with potassium silicate on Monday.

This project's happening in a little village called Kircubbin, right on Strangford Lough.  It's been very enjoyable just being able to sit and have your lunch and watch the fishermen collecting lobster pots.  Kircubbin seems as if it would be a lovely place to live - lots of small pubs and a really good restaurant specialising in seafood, which we're dying to try.  What more could you ask for?