The Gipsoteca Antonio Canova is part of the Museo Canova in Possagno, the birthplace of the Italian neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova. The museum houses plaster models, terracotta sketches and studies used by the artist in the process of creating his marble sculptures. 

The original basilica-like gallery was designed in the nineteenth century by architect Francesco Lazzari to display Canova’s plaster casts. In 1957 the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa added a modern extension, carefully designed to introduce natural light and new spatial relationships between the sculptures and the surrounding landscape. 

Scarpa’s intervention is widely regarded as one of the most refined examples of museum architecture of the twentieth century, using controlled daylight, minimal materials and carefully choreographed spaces to highlight the sculptural works on display.