Stefano Boeri - architect

Milan urban planner famous for Vertical Forest

Stefano Boeri is a specialist in
sustainable development projects

The architect Stefano Boeri, a specialist in environmentally sustainable developments and best known for his Bosco Verticale - Vertical Forest - project in Milan, was born on this day in 1956 in Milan.

The Bosco Verticale consists of two residential tower blocks in the Isola neighbourhood in the north of the city, just beyond the Porta Garibaldi railway station.  The two towers, one of 111m (364 ft), the other of 76m (249 ft), incorporate 8,900 sqm (96,000 sq ft) of terraces that are home to approximately 800 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 perennial plants.

The vegetation - the equivalent of what might be found in three hectares of woodland but with a footprint of just 3,000 sqm - mitigates against urban pollution, absorbing dust and carbon dioxide while producing oxygen. The trees also provide natural climate control for the inhabitants, shading the interior from sun in the summer and blocking cold winds in the winter.

Boeri incorporated other features to make the building self-sufficient, generating energy from solar panels and using filtered waste water to irrigate the plants.

Construction of the towers began in late 2009 and the project was completed in 2014, since which time similar projects have been started in Lausanne in Switzerland, Eindhoven and Utrecht in the Netherlands and several cities in China.

Boeri studied architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan, where he earned a master's degree, before adding a PhD in architecture in 1989 from the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia.

Boeri's Bosco Verticale tower blocks are now
a eyecatching feature of the Milan skyline

He was editor-in-chief of the international architectural magazine Domus from 2004 to 2007 and the Italian monthly design magazine Abitare from 2007 to 2011. He founded Multiplicity, a research agency investigating the relationships between geopolitics and urban planning, took part in numerous international exhibitions and wrote many academic articles.

In 1999, he founded the Boeri Studio with fellow architects Gianandrea Barreca and Giovanni La Varra, that evolved in 2009 into Stefano Boeri Architetti, in partnership with Michele Brunello, which now has offices in Shanghai and Doha, Qatar as well as Milan.

Between April 2011 and March 2013, Boeri was Head of Culture, Design and Fashion for the city of Milan, and between July 2014 and October 2015 was Councillor for Culture and Major Events for the Mayor of Florence.

Other notable projects for which Boeri was responsible include the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille and the House of the Sea of La Maddalena in Sardinia.

The Villa Méditerranée in Marseille, with the city's
Romanesque-Byzantine style cathedral in the distance

The Villa Méditerranée is a museum and cultural center dedicated to historical, cultural, scientific, and sociological matters affecting countries bordering the Mediterranean. Located in the docks area of the port of Marseille, the building features a cantilevered exhibition floor and an underwater conference suite.

Located on the south-western edge of the port area of La Maddalena, the main a town in the Maddalena archipelago off the northern tip of the island of Sardinia, the House of the Sea building, which is used for commercial purposes as well as hosting exhibitions dedicated to nautical and sailing events, is a striking structure consisting of two rectangular elements of different sizes, one placed flush with the quay and, suspended above, a larger upper body that juts out over the water.

Boeri is married to Maddalena Bregani, a former TV writer and editor who co-founded the Multiplicity agency with him and now works as a consultant in projects around the cultural production and the communication fields, based in Milan. 

The Unicredit Tower is
another Isola landmark

Travel tip:

Situated adjacent to the Porta Garibaldi railway station, Isola used to be one of Milan’s toughest working-class neighbourhoods but since the early 2000s, after rents in the sought-after Brera and Navigli districts increased sharply, artists and young professionals began to be drawn to the Isola area’s village vibe and much cheaper apartments and is now one of the city’s trendiest,  up-and-coming areas, well connected to the city centre by a metro line. The area boasts a vibrant nightlife, chic boutiques, some fine restaurants and an array of cafes serving good coffee and delicious pastries. The area has also become famous for second-hand shops that stock vintage designer pieces, such as Chanel bags and Ferragamo shoes.

The Maddalena Archipelago is known for its
white sand beaches and crystal clear waters

Travel tip:

The Maddalena Archipelago is a group of islands in the Strait of Bonifacio between the French island of Corsica and north-eastern Sardinia (Italy). It consists of seven main islands and numerous small islets, the largest one of which is the island of La Maddalena with its homonymous town. Maddalena has the same clear waters and wind blown granite coastlines as the nearby upmarket tourist resorts of the Costa Smeralda but remains a haven for wildlife, home to the Parco Nazionale Arcipelago di La Maddalena.

Also on this day:

1343: Amalfi destroyed by tsunami

1881: The birth of Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII

1939: The birth of actress Rosanna Schiaffino

1950: The birth of novelist Giorgio Faletti

1955: The birth of dance show judge Bruno Tonioli

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Alessandro Galilei - architect

After frustrations in England Florentine made mark in Rome

Giuseppe Berti's portrait of
Alessandro Galilei

The architect Alessandro Galilei, best known for the colossal Classical façade of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, was born on this day in 1691 in Florence.

From the same patrician family as Renaissance polymath Galileo Galilei but not a direct descendant, Galilei’s father was a notary, Giuseppe Maria Galilei. Though his father considered the family to be noble still, their standing had fallen somewhat under Medici rule.

Alessandro studied mathematics and engineering at the prestigious Accademia dei Nobili in Florence, where he was instructed in building techniques and perspective among other things. 

As he sought to develop a career, Galilei met John Molesworth, son of Viscount Robert Molesworth, who spent three years in Florence as an envoy to the Medici court. Molesworth used his time there to indulge his interests in architecture, art, music, literature and poetry and developed a close friendship with Galilei, whose designs he admired.  He sponsored Galilei to spend time studying in Rome and when his posting in Italy was at an end, invited him to return to England with him.

Galilei’s designs had a Classical bent that put him at odds with the fashion for Baroque that was still dominant in Italy but appealed to Molesworth and to his father, who was keen to launch a new architectural movement, to which the subscribers included Sir Thomas Hewitt and Edward Lovett Pearce, who Galilei had met in Florence while Pearce was in Italy to study the architecture of Andrea Palladio.

The facade of Castletown House, home of Irish
politician William Conolly, was designed by Galilei

Although Galilei’s time in London yielded few commissions as Molesworth’s movement failed to take off, he had more success in Ireland, where Robert Molesworth introduced him to William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and the wealthy owner of Castletown House, a palatial house near Dublin. He invited Galilei to design a new façade, and though the Italian did not remain in England to execute his plans, they were carried through by Pearce.

Before he returned to Florence, Galilei also designed the Doric portico on the east front of Kimbolton Castle in Huntingdonshire for Charles, Duke of Manchester.

In 1719, Galilei was appointed engineer of court buildings and fortresses to the courts of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, Cosimo III and Gian Gastone de' Medici. Again, however, his severe, heavily Classical designs failed to win him the grand projects he hoped to secure.

His fortunes changed in 1730 when a Florentine Cardinal, Lorenzo Cortini, was elected as pope, taking the name of Pope Clement XII. He called Galilei to Rome in 1731 to build his family's chapel, the Cappella Corsini, in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano.

Pope Clement XII gave Galilei
his most prestigious project

At around the same time, Clement XII announced ambitious plans to renovate the basilica, which was the oldest and highest ranking of the four papal basilicas in the city but had suffered neglect after twice being damaged by fire in the 14th century, before being rebuilt in the 16th century.

He announced a competition for a new façade. Designs were submitted by 26 architects and the award of the commission to Galilei attracted raised eyebrows, especially since the consensus was that Luigi Vanvitelli’s entry was far superior.

Galilei completed the project in 1735, after which the sheer scale of his design, topped with enormous statues of saints, attracted more controversy, with critics complaining that it was far more suited to a palace than a church. It was not until Neoclassicism became popular in subsequent years that his work earned the appreciation that was missing in his lifetime.

Also responsible for the Baroque façade of the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Rome, Galilei died in Rome in 1737, at the age of just 46. A portrait of him by his contemporary, Giuseppe Berti, today hangs in the entrance hall of Castletown House.

Galilei's façade of the Basilica di San
Giovanni in Laterano was controversial

Travel tip:

Although the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano is in the Appio/San Giovanni neighbourhood of Rome, southeast of the city centre, some 4km (2.5 miles) southwest of the Vatican, because it is a property of the Holy See, the basilica and its adjoining buildings enjoy an extraterritorial status from Italy, in accordance with the terms of the Lateran Treaty of 1929. The oldest and most important of Rome’s four major basilicas, it is officially Rome’s cathedral.  The church’s history can be traced to the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who converted the Lateran Palace to a church in 324 after he had converted to Christianity.  

The church of San Giovanni dei
Fiorentini overlooks the Tiber

Travel tip:

The church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini can be found in the Ponte district of central Rome, overlooking the Tiber, just across the river from Castel Sant’ Angelo and about 10 minutes’ walk from Piazza Navona. It was conceived after Pope Leo X organised a competition in 1518 for a new church on the site of the old church of San Pantaleo. The architects who submitted designs included Baldassare Peruzzi, Jacopo Sansovino, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Raphael. Although Sansovino won the competition, the building was constructed by Sangallo and Giacomo della Porta, with Carlo Maderno taking over in 1602. Galilei’s façade was not added until 1734.

Also on this day:

79: The eruption of Vesuvius destroys Pompeii

655: The death of Saint Patricia of Naples

1509: The birth of Ippolito II d’Este

1609: Galileo Galilei demonstrates his telescope

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Antonio Sant’Elia - architectural visionary

Futurist’s ideas were decades ahead of his time

Antonio Sant'Elia's design for an apartment block
with external lifts, above a network of roads 

The architect Antonio Sant’Elia, best known for producing hundreds of drawings based on his vision of an idealised modern industrial city, was born on this day in 1888 in Como in Lombardy.

Sant’Elia’s life was short - he died in battle barely a year after signing up for military service in the First World War - and his physical legacy comprised only one completed building, the Villa Elisi, a modest house in the hills above his home city.

Yet, thanks to the boldly imaginative designs he captured in dozens of sketches illustrating how he saw the cities of the future, Sant’Elia is still seen as one of modern architecture’s most influential figures, more than a century after his death.

A builder by trade, in 1912 Sant’Elia set up a design office in Milan with fellow architect Mario Chittone.

He was already a follower of Futurism, the avant-garde artistic, social and political movement that had been launched by the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909.

Sant'Elia's vision of an airport rail terminal
with escalators from the rail platforms

The Futurists’ admiration for the speed and technological advancement of cars and aeroplanes and the new industrial cities, which they saw as demonstrating the triumph of humanity over nature through invention, aligned with his own rejection of traditional design.

The movement’s Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, published by Marinetti in 1914, is thought to have been written by Sant’Elia, outlining his vision for the industrialised and mechanised city of the future, comprising interconnected multi-level buildings in the style of modern skyscrapers, with integrated transport systems that facilitated fast, efficient movement.

In the same year, a collection of Sant’Elia’s drawings called Città Nuova - New City - was displayed in May 1914 at an exhibition of the Nuove Tendenze group, of which he was a member, at the Famiglia Artistica gallery in Milan.

It was these drawings that revealed Sant’Elia’s remarkable vision, his designs so futuristic they would scarcely have seemed dated had another architect unveiled them towards the end of the 20th century rather than in its infancy.

Antonio Sant'Elia opened a 
design studio in Milan

They featured pyramids, buttresses and towers, giant factories and multi-floor, stepped residential buildings complete with external elevators, linked with walkways, and interspersed with roads and railways suspended at different levels. 

One of Sant’Elia’s drawings was of a transport portal for trains and aircraft with escalators linking the railway platforms with the runway.

Although the Città Nuova was never built, Sant’Elia’s ideas influenced many generations of future architects. The Pompidou Centre in Paris (1977), designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, Rogers’s Lloyds Building in London (1986) and Piano’s The Shard, also in London (2012) all carry echoes of Sant’Elia’s designs, as does Helmut Jahn’s James R Thompson Centre in Chicago and the Marriott Marquis hotel in Georgia by John Portman, both built in the 1980s.

Many within the Futurist movement were strongly nationalist in their political leanings, which inevitably led some to be drawn towards Fascism and its vision of a powerful, self-contained Italy free from foreign influence.

It was Sant’Elia’s own nationalism and irredentism that persuaded him to join the army as Italy entered World War I in 1915, excited at the idea that he could play a part in finally evicting the Austrians from northeast Italy, where they still controlled an area stretching from Trentino through the South Tyrol to Trieste.

Sadly, he did not live to see that ambition realised. The focus of the Italian-Austrian conflict was the valley of the Isonzo river, also known as the Soça, which runs from its source in the Julian Alps in western Slovenia and enters the Gulf of Trieste near Monfalcone, and there were a series of 12 battles fought along this front between June 1915 and November 1917.

Sant’Elia died in the eighth of these battles in October 1916 near Gorizia. In all, the Battles of the Isonzo, concluding with the catastrophic Battle of Caporetto, resulted in almost one million Italian casualties including 300,000 dead, half of the number of Italians killed in the whole of World War One.

Sant'Elia's only finished
building, the Villa Elisi

Travel tip:

The Villa Elisi can be found in the San Maurizio area above the town of Brunate, about 8km (5 miles) up a winding road from Como, to which it is also linked by a funicular railway. The area offers spectacular views of Lake Como. Villa Elisa, the only building designed and built by Antonio Sant’Elia, was commissioned by the Como industrialist Romeo Longatti as a holiday home. The villa features the asymmetrical, geometric designs typical of much of Sant'Elia's work. It represented an opportunity for Sant’Elia to prove his worth as an architect and overcome the structural problems posed by the house’s location on steeply sloping ground.

Palazzo Volpi in Como, home of the city's civic
art gallery, where Sant'Elia's drawings can be seen

Travel tip:

Sant’Elia’s drawings of his Città Nuovo are on permanent display in Como’s Pinocoteca Civica, the city’s art gallery. Inaugurated in 1989 in the 17th-century Palazzo Volpi in Via Armando Diaz, the gallery houses a collection that spans the Middle Ages through to contemporary times, documenting the Como area’s artwork from religious buildings to portraiture, landscapes and 20th century works related. In addition to Sant’Elia’s drawings, the centrepieces are the sixth century Portraits of Illustrious Men collection by Paolo Giovio and some major works by the Gruppo Como, a group of 20th century abstract artists from Como.

Also on this day:

1306: The birth of Venetian Doge Andrea Dandolo

1885: The birth of Futurist composer Luigi Russolo

The Feast Day of Saint Pius V

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Benedetta Tagliabue - architect

Italian half of an acclaimed design partnership

Benedetta Tagliabue is an award-winning
architect based in Barcelona, Spain

The architect Benedetta Tagliabue, whose work in partnership with her late husband Enric Miralles included the iconic Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood in Edinburgh, was born on this day in 1963 in Milan.

Tagliabue formed a close friendship with Barcelona-born Miralles when she was a student and he was teaching at Columbia University in New York.

They became business partners in 1991 and married a year later.  Tragically, Miralles died in 2000 at the age of just 45, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour, but Tagliabue has continued to run the business they created.

Tagliabue studied architecture in Switzerland and Venice, attending the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV), which is part of the University of Venice. She fell in love with the city of canals and made it her home for several years. Indeed, she first met Miralles in Venice when she interviewed him for a magazine.

They were reacquainted when she went to New York for the final thesis of her degree and stayed in touch. They began a formal collaboration in 1991 and founded the architecture firm Miralles Tagliabue EMBT.

Based in Barcelona, the company undertook projects in Barcelona as well as The Netherlands and Germany. 

They began work on the Scottish Parliament project in 1998. Miralles was familiar with the Scottish capital and had studied the Edinburgh architect William Adam.

The Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood in Edinburgh
was instigated by Enric Miralles and completed in 2004

The design for the parliament buildings, which has been compared to an upturned boat of even lines and symmetrical curves, won much praise but the project ran considerably over its original budget and Miralles was criticised for spending too little time in Edinburgh.

Not long afterwards Miralles became ill and underwent surgery in the United States following his diagnosis.  The operation was hailed a success but, after returning home to Barcelona, Miralles suffered a fatal blood clot.

Despite her loss and being left to bring up two children without a partner, Tagliabue vowed to complete the projects that she and her husband had begun, including the Scottish Parliament Building, which was completed in 2004.

These included the Diagonal Mar Park and the Santa Caterina Market in Barcelona and the University Campus in Vigo. The Santa Caterina Market features a striking roof in the shape of what has been described as a multicolored ceramic wave. 

Tagliabue has designed a
metro station in Naples

Tagliabue’s work has won many awards, including the prestigious RIBA International “Best International Building of 2011” award for the Spanish Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

Her projects in Italy include the development of redundant former railway sidings in Milan and a metro station in the Centro Direzionale business district in the Poggioreale area of Naples.

Tagliabue, who has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, Columbia University and the Barcelona School of Architecture, lives in Barcelona in the Ciutat Vella quarter, the oldest part of the city, which has been likened to Naples but which Tagliabue said reminds her of Venice.

This restored cotton mill on the Giudecca Canal
is part of the Iuav campus in Venice

Travel tip:

Founded in 1926, Venice’s renowned School of Architecture began life as the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV). Nowadays it is known as Iuav University of Venice, or simply Iuav. It is the only university in Italy to provide thorough education and training in architecture, urban planning, design, visual arts, theatre and fashion. The headquarters of Iuav can be found in the Santa Croce sestiere in Calle dei Amai, not far from Piazzale Roma and the Santa Lucia railway station. Other departments are housed in the Palazzo Badoer in Calle de la Laca, while the Palazzo Ca’ Tron on the Grand Canal near the church of San Stae is used as an exhibition centre.  The campus also includes the cotonoficio veneziana, a former cotton mill on the Giudecca Canal that dates back to 1883 and was restored in the 1960s after lying empty for more than 30 years.

The Toledo station is one of several
artistic gems on the Naples metro

Travel tip:

The metro station EMBT are creating in Naples is the latest of several stations on the city’s network in which the emphasis has been on turning the underground rail system into a thing of beauty as well as functionality. The most famous of these is Toledo, on the edge of the city’s Spanish Quarter, which features a breathtaking escalator descent through a vast mosaic by the Spanish architect Oscar Tusquets Blanca known as the Crater de Luz – the crater of light – which creates the impression of daylight streaming into a volcanic crater.

Also on this day:

1859: The Battle of Solferino

1866: The Battle of Custoza

1940: The birth of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro

1993: The birth of tenor Piero Barone of the group Il Volo

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Giovanni Battista Crespi – Baroque artist

Religious painter portrayed saints expressing human emotions

Crespi's painting, St Gregory delivers
the soul of a monk, in Varese

Painter, sculptor and architect Giovanni Battista Crespi was born on this day in 1573 in Romagnano Sesia in the Piedmont region of Italy.

His father was the painter Raffaele Crespi, who eventually moved his family to live in Cerano near Novara. When Giovanni Battista Crespi became one of the chief Lombardy artists of the early 17th century, he was often referred to as Il Cerano.

Reflecting the Counter Reformation pious mood of the time, many of his paintings focused on mysteries and mystical episodes in the lives of the saints, capturing their emotions.

Crespi spent some time in Rome, where he formed a friendship with the Milanese cardinal, Federico Borromeo, who became his patron. Together, they went to Milan, which was under the inspiration of the cardinal’s uncle, Charles Borromeo, and was a centre for the fervent spiritual revival in art.

Crespi formed a style that was Mannerist in its use of colour and in the mystical quality of his figures, although he also gave them realistic details.

Along with other artists, Crespi completed a series of paintings, Quadroni of St Charles, for the Duomo in Milan. He painted an altarpiece, the Baptism of St Augustine, for San Marco, Milan and a painting, Mass of St Gregory, for the Basilica of San Vittore in Varese. Also in San Vittore is his 1617 painting, St Gregory delivers the soul of a monk.

Crespi’s later paintings are impressive because of the human qualities of the figures he portrays while they are going through religious experiences, such as the Madonna of the Rosary in 1615, which is now in the Brera Museum in Milan.

In 1620, Crespi was appointed head of the Accademia Ambrosiana, which was founded by Cardinal Federico Borromeo. Among the artists he taught at the Accademia were Daniele Crespi, who was possibly one of his relatives, Carlo Francesco Nuvolone and Melchiorre Gherardini.

A respected academic as well as an artist, Crespi died in 1632 in Milan.

The Piazza Libertà, the main square in Romagnano Sesia,
where Giovanni Battista Crespi was born

Travel tip:

Romagnano Sesia, the birthplace of Giovanni Battista Crespi, is a town in the province of Novara, about 80km (50 miles) northeast of Turin and about 25km (16 miles) northwest of Novara. One of the famous sights there is the Cantina dei Santi (Saints' Cellar), a room that is the only remaining evidence of the ancient Benedictine monastery of San Silano. The cantina has frescoes depicting the Biblical story of David and King Saul dating back to the 15th century.

The entrance to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the historic
library in central Milan

Travel tip:

The Accademia Ambrosiana in Milan, where Giovanni Battista Crespi taught, was established in 1618 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo as a place where young Counter Reformation artists could study. He also founded the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana to inspire and support fine art students and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, a library where they could go to read and research. You can visit the Pinacoteca and Biblioteca in Piazza Pio XI in Milan, which is close to the Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

Also on this day:



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Benedetto Alfieri – architect

Talented designer behind the Teatro Regio in Turin

Turin's Royal Theatre was hailed
as Alfieri's masterpiece

Baroque architect Benedetto Innocenzo Alfieri was born on this day in 1699 in Rome.

He was a member of the Alfieri family who originated in Piedmont and he became the uncle of the dramatist, Vittorio Alfieri. Benedetto was also the godson of Pope Innocent XII.

Alfieri was sent to be educated in mathematics and design by the Jesuits. He later moved to Piedmont and lived in both Turin and Asti, where he practised as a lawyer and an architect.

Charles Emmanuel III, King of Sardinia, one of his patrons, commissioned him to design the Royal Theatre in Turin, originally assigned to Filippo Juvara, but who died before work began. The building was acknowledged as his masterpiece, but it burned down in 1936 and the theatre did not reopen until 1973.

Benedetto also helped with the decoration of the interior of the Basilica of Corpus Domini in Turin and the interior of Palazzo Chiablese next to the Royal Palace in Turin. In recognition, Charles Emmanuel III made him Count of Sostegno.

Alfieri also completed the bell tower of the Church of Sant’Anna in Asti and the façade of Vercelli Cathedral. He designed the bell tower of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio in Novara and completed the neoclassical façade of Saint Pierre Cathedral in Geneva.

During his career he collaborated with artists such as Luigi Acquisti, Giovanni Battista Borra and Emilio Usiglio, among many others.

Alfieri died in Turin in 1767.

An 18th century painting of the original interior
of the Teatro Regio in Turin

Travel tip:

The Teatro Regio - Royal Theatre - originally designed by Benedetto Alfieri, is an opera house in Turin that presents several operas between October and June each season. The theatre originally seated 1500 people, with 139 boxes on five tiers and a gallery. The theatre closed during the First World War and reopened in 1919. In 1936, fire destroyed all but the façade of the theatre. It was to remain closed until 1973.  The theatre was inaugurated on December 26, 1740 but was closed on royal order in 1792 and it became a warehouse, reopened only after the French occupation of Turin during the Napoleonic War, the theatre was renamed the Teatro Nazionale. Napoleon's fall in 1814 saw the theatre returned to its original name.

The facade of the Palazinna di Caccia di
Stupinigi, the Savoy hunting lodge

Travel tip:

Benedetto Alfieri was responsible for the decoration of the Palazinna di Caccia di Stupinigi, a hunting lodge that was one of the residences of the House of Savoy. Located in a suburb of the town of Nichelino, 10km (6 miles) south west of Turin, the building is now on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list.  Stupinigi was the preferred building to be used for celebrations and dynastic weddings by members of the House of Savoy. In 1773 at the lodge, Maria Teresa, Princess of Savoy, married Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, brother of Louis XVI and the future Charles X of France. Today the building houses the Museo di Arte e Ammobiliamento, a museum of the arts and furnishings, some original to the palazzina, others brought from the former Savoia residences of Moncalieri and Venaria Reale.

Also on this day:

1671: The birth of composer Tomaso Albinoni

1823: The birth of Giuseppe Fiorelli, the archaeologist who saved Pompeii

1852: The birth of Guido Banti, the first physicist to define leukaemia


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Achille Castiglioni - designer

Leading figure in post-war Italian style

Achille Castiglioni regarded
furniture-making as art

The designer Achille Castiglioni, whose innovative ideas for lighting, furniture and items for the home put him at the forefront of Italy’s post-war design boom, was born on this day in 1918 in Milan.

Many of his designs, including the Arco floor lamp for which he is most famous, are still in production today, even 17 years after his death.

The Arco lamp, which he designed in 1962 in conjunction with his brother, Pier Giacomo, combined a heavy base in Carrara marble, a curved telescopic stainless steel arm and a polished aluminium reflector.

Designed so that the reflector could be suspended above a table or a chair, the Arco was conceived as an overhead lighting solution for apartments that removed the need for holes in the ceiling and wiring, yet as an object of simple chic beauty it came to be seen as a symbol of sophistication and good taste.

The Arco lamp, anchored in a block of marble, is
perhaps Castiglioni's most famous creation

The Arco was commissioned by the Italian lighting company Flos, which still produces numerous other lamps designed by Castiglioni.

Achille’s father was the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni. His brothers Livio and Pier Giacomo, both older, were architects.

He initially studied classics at the Liceo classico Giuseppe Parini in Milan, but switched to study the arts at the Liceo artistico di Brera. In 1937 he enrolled in the faculty of architecture of the Politecnico di Milano.

As was common for young Italians of his generation, the Second World War interrupted Achille’s progress. He joined up, became an officer in the artillery, and was stationed on the Greek front and later in Sicily, returning to Milan just before the Allied invasion of 1943. In March 1944 he was able to graduate.

The Mezzadro chair incorporated a tractor seat
mounted on a metal and wood base

He joined the studio his brothers ran with Luigi Caccia Dominioni, another young Italian architect and designer. They designed interiors and created products, among them the Fimi-Phonola 547 radio, an extraordinary piece in metal and moulded bakelite that fulfilled the need to be inexpensive but was uniquely stylish.

After the war, Italy entered a kind of mini-Renaissance, inspired with the sense of a new beginning. Designers gave free rein to their imagination, often placing art above functionality in the design process. Castiglioni managed to marry the two.

When Livio left in 1952, Achille and Pier Giacomo continued to work together on innovative, sleekly modern designs for everyday objects and appliances. One creation, a vacuum cleaner in red plastic with a leather strap that the user could carry on his or her back, made for the REM company, can now be found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, along with more than a dozen other Castiglioni designs.

Lighting was always Achille Castiglioni's speciality, enabling him to indulge his fascination with symbolism and theatricality. From the 1960s to the ‘80s, seen as Milan’s heyday as the city of design - he applied the same creative strategy to a wide range of projects, as diverse as hi-fi equipment and hospital beds.

Castiglioni's unique bakelite radio, the
Fimi-Phonola 547

He embraced the concept of using ‘found objects’ to create unusual but functional furniture, such as his Sella - saddle - stool, which featured a bicycle seat atop a pole with a rounded base designed as a telephone stool. Another seating solution, the Mezzadro, incorporated a tractor seat.

In his later years, after Pier Giacomo's death, Achille remained active in the studio in Piazza Castello but also went back to college, this time to lecture in design, first at the Polytechnic of Turin and later as a professor at the Polytechnic of Milan.

Castiglioni, who was one of the founding members of Association for Industrial Design (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale), established in 1956, died in 2002 at the age of 84. He was survived by his wife, Irma, and three children.

Castiglioni's studio, now a museum, is close to Milan's
magnificent Castello Sforzesco

Travel tip:

Castiglioni’s studio in the Piazza Castello in Milan has been turned into a museum, looked after by his youngest daughter, Giovanna. It is also the headquarters of the Fondazione Achille Castiglioni, established in 2011 to celebrate his work but also to promote innovative and stylish design. Piazza Castello is the semi-circular space surrounding the Castello Sforzesco, Milan’s impressive 15th century castle, which can be found about a 20-minute walk from the Duomo in a northwesterly direction. The Fondazione, at Piazza Castello 27, is open to the public via guided visits only, which take about an hour and cost €10. For more information, visit http://fondazioneachillecastiglioni.it/en/visits/

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The main building of the Politecnico di Milano in
Piazza Leonardo da Vince in the Città Studi

Travel tip:

The Politecnico di Milano was founded in November 1863 by Francesco Brioschi, secretary of the Ministry of Education and rector of the University of Pavia. It is the oldest university in Milan. Originally, only civil and industrial engineering were taught. Architecture was introduced in 1865 in cooperation with the Brera Academy. There were only 30 students admitted in the first year; today, there are 42,000. Its central offices and headquarters are on Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, located in the historical campus of Città Studi in Milan, about 3.5km (2 miles) northeast of the city centre.


More reading:

How Marco Zanuso's ideas put Italy at the forefront of contemporary design

The Rome designer who became England's Royal jeweller

Flaminio Bertoni: car design as sculpture

Also on this day:

1740: The birth of Giambattista Bodoni - printer and type designer

1907: The death of poet Giosuè Carducci 

1935: The birth of Morricone's wordless vocalist Edda dell'Orso

1970: The birth of footballer Angelo Peruzzi

1979: The birth of multiple world motorcycling champion Valentino Rossi

(Picture credits: Mezzadro chair by Sailko; Watch by austincalhoon; Castello Sforzesco by Gpaolo; Politecnico by Luigi Brambilla; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Louis Visconti - architect

Roman who made his mark on Paris

The French painter Théophile Vauchelet's
portrait of  the architect Louis Visconti 

The architect Louis Visconti, who designed a number of public buildings and squares as well as numerous private residences in Paris, was born on this day in 1791 in Rome.

Notably, Visconti was the architect chosen to design the tomb to house the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte after King Louis Philippe I obtained permission from Britain in 1840 to return them from Saint Helena, the remote island in the South Atlantic where the former emperor had died in exile in 1921.

Born Louis Tullius Joachim Visconti, he came from a family of archaeologists. His grandfather, Giambattista Antonio Visconti was the founder of the Vatican Museums and his father, Ennio Quirino Visconti, was an archaeologist and art historian.

Ennio had been a consul of the short-lived Roman Republic, proclaimed in February 1798 after Louis Alexandre Berthier, a general of Napoleon, had invaded Rome, but was forced to leave with the restoration of papal control.

He and his family moved to Paris and were naturalised as French citizens, with Ennio becoming a curator of antiquities and paintings at the Musée du Louvre. 

Visconti's magnificent tomb for Napoleon Bonaparte, in
red porphyry on a granite base, standing 16ft high

In 1808, Louis enrolled at Paris's École des Beaux-Arts.  He excelled in architecture and secured second prize in the architecture section of the Prix de Rome in 1814 and the architecture department prize at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1817.

He was was appointed by the city in 1826 to oversee building works in the 3rd and 8th arrondissements and subsequently as curator of the 8th section of public monuments, which comprised the Bibliothèque Royale, the monument on Place des Victoires, Porte Saint-Martin, Saint-Denis and the Colonne Vendôme.

He became divisional architect in 1848, and government architect in 1849.

In May 1848, he produced a first-draft design for completing the Palais du Louvre. He was made architect to the Palais des Tuileries in July 1852 and architect to Napoleon III the following year.

The Hôtel de Pontalba in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré,
now home to the US Ambassador to France

Visconti built a number of Renaissance-style public fountains in Paris, including the Fontaine Gaillon, the Fontaine Louvois, the Fontaine Molière, the Fontaine Quatre Evèques and the Fontaine Saint-Sulpice. He was an important participant in the revival of the Picturesque and Gothic styles, as is reflected in the Château de Lussy (1844), which is modelled after an English cottage.

Among several large houses he designed, the Hôtel de Pontalba in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, built in 1839, is an outstanding example.

Hôtel de Pontalba is an example of an hôtel particulier, a type of large townhouse. It was commissioned by New Orleans-born Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba. Nowadays, it is the official residence of the United States Ambassador to France.

During his time as the official architect for the Louvre under Napoleon III, he was commissioned to design the tomb for Napoleon Bonaparte.

Louis Philippe had arranged for Napoleon’s remains to be brought to France in 1840 and they were first buried in the Chapelle Saint-Jérôme in Hôtel des Invalides, the complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris that contains museums and monuments relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose.

The buildings include the Dôme des Invalides, the tallest church in Paris at a height of 107m (351ft), which contains the tombs of some of France's war heroes. It became Napoleon’s final resting place in Visconti’s magnificent, dramatic tomb, crafted in red porphyry on a green granite base, circled by a crown of laurels, standing 5m (16 feet) high and 4.5m wide.

The remains of the Forum of ancient Rome attract some
4.5 million visitors every year

Travel tip:

When the new Roman Republic was declared in 1798, its supporters symbolically gathered in the Foro Romano, the remains of the Forum of ancient Rome, a rectangular piazza (square) surrounded by important government buildings at the centre of the city. For centuries the Forum was the centre of day-to-day life in Rome, a market place but also the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, elections and triumphal processions. Statues and monuments were built to commemorate the city's great men. Located between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today attracts some 4.5 million visitors every year.

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Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ
is among the Vatican's art treasures 

Travel tip:

The Vatican Museums, located inside the Vatican City, display works from the immense collection amassed by popes throughout the centuries including several renowned Roman sculptures and some of the most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The museums, founded by Pope Julius II in the 16th century, contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display. The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling decorated by Michelangelo, and the Stanze di Raffaello, decorated by Raphael, are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums, which are visited by some six million people each year, making in the fifth most visited art museum in the world. The museums employ a full-time staff of 640 people.

More reading:

Why Luigi Vanvitelli was the 18th century's most celebrated architect

How architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini reshaped Catania in Sicily

The founding of the papal Swiss Guard

Also on this day:

1881: The birth of Futurist painter Carlo Carrà

1917: The birth of film director Giuseppe De Santis

1929: The Lateran Treaty declares the Vatican an independent state

1948: The birth of footballer Carlo Sartori

1995: The birth of singer Gianluca Ginoble


(Picture credits: Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb by Son of Groucho; Hôtel de Pontalba by Mouloud47; Rome Forum by Rennett Stowe; via Wikemedia Commons)

(Paintings: Portrait of Visconti - Musée Carnavalet, Paris; Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ - Pinacoteca Vaticano, Rome)

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Ernesto Basile - architect

Pioneer of Stile Liberty - the Italian twist on Art Nouveau

The rear facade of the Palazzo Monteciterio, which was
almost completely rebuilt by Ernesto Basile

The architect Ernesto Basile, who would become known for his imaginative fusion of ancient, medieval and modern architectural elements and as a pioneer of Art Nouveau in Italy, was born on this day in 1857 in Palermo.

His most impressive work was done in Rome, where he won a commission to rebuild almost completely the Palazzo Montecitorio, the home of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament.

Yet his most wide-ranging impact was in Sicily, where he followed in the footsteps of his father, Giovan Battista Filippo Basile, in experimenting with the Art Nouveau style.

Basile senior designed the Villa Favaloro, in Piazza Virgilio off Via Dante, and with Ernesto and others, notably Vincenzo Alagna, taking up the mantle, it was not long before entire districts of the city were dominated by Stile Liberty, the Italianate version of the Art Nouveau that took its name from the Liberty and Co store in London's Regent Street, which sold ornaments, fabric and objets d'art to a refined clientele and encouraged modern designers.

Ernesto Basile was a pioneer
of Art Nouveau style

Fine examples of Ernesto Basile’s architecture in Palermo include the Villino Florio (1899–1902) in Viale Regina Margherita, which is open to the public, the Hotel Villa Igiea (1899–1901) on the waterfront and the Casa Utveggio on Via XX Settembre.

He also completed the construction of the city’s great opera house, the Renaissance-style Teatro Massimo, which had been started by his father in 1874 and was finally completed in 1897, its progress interrupted by an eight-year hiatus after a dispute over funding.  Allegations of fraud were levelled at Basile senior and he was to have been replaced with another architect until a public outcry forced his reinstatement. In the event he died soon after work restarted and the final six years were overseen by Ernesto.

Taught initially by his father, who was a professor at the University of Palermo, Ernesto graduated from the Royal School of Engineering and Architecture and soon afterwards moved to Rome.

His work on the Palazzo Montecitorio came about after he took part in a competition held by Francesco Crispi, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, to find an architect to supervise the reconstruction of the palace, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini with later input from Carlo Fontana, which had been seized by the new Italian government in 1870 but had fallen into serious disrepair.

Ernesto Basile's stylish Villino Florio is one of many
examples of Stile Liberty in the city of Palermo

Basile demolished the wings and rear of the palace so that Bernini’s facade was virtually all that remained, building a new structure dominated by four red-brick towers at the corners. Basile also added the Transatlantico, the long and impressive salon which surrounds the grand debating chamber, which is also Basile’s design.

The project, in which Basile fused the Roman classical and Baroque elements of the building with Art Nouveau, is seen as one of the most important milestones for early modernism in Italian architecture.

Basile’s other notable works in a prolific career include the building for the National Exhibition of Palermo in 1892, the Teatro Sociale in Canicattì in the Sicilian province of Agrigento, the Palazzo Bruno di Belmonte in Ispica in the province of Ragusa in the southeast of the island and the Palazzo San Giorgio in Reggio Calabria.

In 1890 he succeeded his father as a professor of architecture at the University of Palermo. He died in the city in August 1932.

The extravagant Liberty-style Antico Stabilimento Balneare
di Mondello is a reminder of the resort's golden age

Travel tip:

Two particular areas of Palermo and the surroundings are dominated by Stile Liberty buildings. One is Via Libertà and the streets running off it between Politeama and the Giardino Inglese; another is Mondello, the seaside town just outside the city created from an area of former marshland, where the promenade retains many Art Nouveau villas built for the well-to-do of Palermo around the turn of the century, some designed by Ernesto Basile. Right in the water itself, built on stilts with a bridge linking it to the promenade, is the extraordinary Antico Stabilimento Balneare di Mondello, the extravagant Stile Liberty bathing platform built by Rudolf Stualker.

Hotels in Mondello from TripAdvisor.co.uk

Ernesto Basile's father designed Palermo's impressive Teatro
Massimo before his son completed the project

Travel tip:

The Teatro Massimo is the largest opera house in Italy and the third biggest in Europe after the Opéra National de Paris and the K. K. Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna. It was originally designed with an auditorium for 3,000 people, although today there is a limit of 1,350.  There are also seven tiers of boxes. Enrico Caruso sang in a performance of La Gioconda during the opening season, returning to perform in Rigoletto at the end of his career. The theatre was closed for renovation for more than 20 years but reopened in 1997. The final scenes of the third part of The Godfather Trilogy, based in Puzo's novel, were filmed there.



More reading:

Gian Lorenzo Bernini - Italy's last universal genius

Ulisse Stacchini, the architect behind two major Milan landmarks

The groundbreaking designs of Paolo Soleri

Also on this day:

1788: The death in Rome of British royal pretender Charles Edward Stuart

1888: The death of Saint Don Bosco

1933: The birth of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano

(Picture credits: Palazzo Monteciterio by Mac9; Villino Florio by GiuseppeT; Mondello Balneare by Berthold_Werner; Teatro Massimo by Bjs; all via Creative Commons)


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