Life is the story of astonishing coincidences. I happened to be driving around the ring road in Vienna when I saw a building almost completely covered by a timber facade. "Scarpa" was the sign on the new facade.

Within the space had been stripped bare and there were simple lines of trestle tables. On the tables lay every drawing which Carlo Scarpa had done for the Brion Tombs.

Years later Kirsty rang and invited me to attend an International Conference for Museum Director, being held in New Zealand for the first time. Peter Noever, the Director of MAK, came to New Zealand for this Conference.

He was rather astonished to discover someone who was ecstatic about his museum, when he was about as far away from it as it is possible to get.

I was even more astonished to discover how the Scarpa exhibition had come about. Peter was a friend of Carlo Scarpa's.