Aula Baratto, Universita Ca' Foscari, Venice: detail showing part of the window and fresco by Mario Sironi

NOTES: Carlo Scarpa carried out two renovations at the CaÔÇÖ Foscari, some twenty years apart, firstly in 1935-1937, in which much of the structural masonry was stripped out and large sheets of glass were installed behind the courtyard columns on the ground floor, the water entrance on the Grand Canal and significantly behind the Gothic windows in the great hall (the Aula Baratto named after Mario Barrato) on the second floor. Here Scarpa designed a dais and tiered wooden seating. The dais framed by marble panels was placed in front of a fresco (1936) by Mario Sironi entitled, ÔÇÿVenezia, lÔÇÖItalia e gli studiÔÇÖ. In 1955 Scarpa was commissioned to convert the great hall into a lecture theatre. Reusing the existing woods, he replaced the tiered seating with a single-storey structure, created an elevated glass wall with a wooden ceiling along the canal side and a complex wooden screen which separated the new lecture theatre from the staircase entrance hall. Destroyed by fire in 1979, it was rebuilt to ScarpaÔÇÖs design in 1983 and further restored in 2005.