Giuseppe Pagano
Giuseppe Pagano (20 August 1896 – 22 April 1945) was an Italian
Background
Giuseppe Pogatschnig was born in Parenzo, Istria, (then in the
Architecture
In 1924, Pagano graduated from the
Philosophy
From the late 1920s, Pagano had adopted a rationalist position, influenced by Futurism and the European avant-gardes – he became an architect caught between the theory and practice of Fascist Italy whose approach advocated for a triad of Unity, Abstraction and Coherence.[4] He had a significant[clarification needed] career as a writer and defender of rationalist architecture in the press, especially Casabella, whose name he soon changed from La Casa Bella when he became director of the magazine in 1933 along with Neapolitan art critic Edoardo Persico. Pagano and Persico revolutionized[clarification needed] the graphic format and used their editorial position both to call to arms like-minded colleagues who believed in the power of architecture to transform modern like and to violently criticize those who reduced it to an ‘aping of styles’.[5]
Exhibition and pavilion design
The Turin Expo of 1928 was Pagano's first foray into exhibition design, where he was responsible for the overall layout of the exposition and five of its pavilions. He also designed the Italian Pavilion for the Liège Expo of 1930 with
Photography
He was also an amateur photographer, an activity sparked by his desire to document Italy's vernacular tradition in architecture.[9] He travelled Italy ‘hunting’ for images and creating careful compositions that expressed material qualities, gave snapshots of daily life and celebrated what he saw as a ‘real’ Italy – not that of the tourist brochures and the propaganda machine. From then on he often published his own photographs in Casabella using them to strengthen his critiques of the architecture of the time.[10]
Politics and art
Though initially an active member of the Italian Fascist party, Pagano's architectural philosophy led him farther and farther from the official architects of the Fascist regime, such that his VI Triennale, in effect, proposed an alternate architectural expression for Fascism. Pagano opposed "representative architecture" of all types, whether Modern or Classical. He remained dubious of some groups of Rationalists (like the Gruppo 7 and art critics like Pier Maria Bardi) who made attempts to identify their architecture with Italian Fascism, and to make it the official state architecture.[11] He worked closely with regime architect Marcello Piacentini on Rome's new university between 1933 and 1935.
Protest and imprisonment
Pagano's position in the Fascist party and prestige among architects, as well as the diversity of cultural production under
Death
Pagano died of pneumonia in the infirmary of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria on 22 April 1945. In one of his last letters to his friends, he asked: “Remember me well: a man alive and full of good will”.[13]
List of works
Architecture
Palazzo Gualino office building, Turin (with Gino Levi Montalcini), 1928–29, for the financier Riccardo Gualino
Sist School, Turin, 1931
Villa Colli, Rivara (with Gino Levi Montalcini), 1931
Entry in Santa Maria Novella Railway Station competition, Florence, 1933
Furniture and interiors for Il Popolo d’Italia offices, Milan, 1934.
Physics building, Città Universitaria, Rome, 1935
Boarding School Biella, 1936
Bocconi University, Milan, 1941 (with engineer Gian Giacomo Predaval), including Sarfatti Building
Rivetti Wool Mills, Biella, 1942 (with engineer Gian Giacomo Predaval)
Urban design
Project for the re-planning and urban renewal of Via Roma, Turin (with Gino Levi Montalcini, Ettore Sottsass and others), 1931
Master plan of E42 (with Marcello Piacentini, Luigi Piccinato, Ettore Rossi and Luigi Vietti), 1937
Green Milan (Milano Verde) Project, Master plan for Sempione-Fiera area (with Franco Albini, Ignazio Gardella and others), 1938
Horizontal City Project, Milan, 1940 (with Marescotti and Diotallevi)
Exhibition and Pavilion Design
Pavilions at Turin International exposition, 1928: Gancia company, Festivals and Fashion, Hunting and Fishing, Navy and Air Force, Mines and Ceramics.
Italian Pavilion at Liege International Exposition (with Gino Levi Montalcini), 1929
Steel Structure House (with Franco Albini, Giancarlo Palanti and others) & Summer Hall (with Ottorino Aloisio, Ettore Sottsass and others), 5th Milan Triennale, 1933
ETR 200 Breda Train Carriage (with Gio Ponti), 1933
Exhibition plan and curation, design of the Hall of Honour and Icarus Room, Aeronautics Exhibition, Milan, 1934
Main entry and adjoining pavilion, Exhibition of Rural Architecture (with Guarniero Daniel), Exhibition of Building Materials (with Guido Frette), 6th Milan Triennale, 1936
Italian pavilion at Paris International Exposition (with Marcello Piacentini), 1937
Rivetti Stand, Wool Exhibits, National Textiles Exhibition, Circus Maximus, Rome (with Angelo Bianchetti), 1938
Leonardo Exhibition, Milan, 1939
References
- ^ Daria De Seta (ed.), Giuseppe Pagano. Vocabulario de imagenes – Image Alphabet, Valencia: Lampreave & Millán, 2008
- ^ Chiara Baglione, Casabella 1908–1928, Milan:Electa, 2008, 13–23
- ISBN 9781789381009.
- ^ Flavia Marcello, “Giuseppe Pagano: A Rationalist Caught between Theories & Practices of Fascist Italy”, Architectural Theory Review, vol. 8, no. 2, 2003, 96–112.
- ^ Chiara Baglione, Casabella 1908–2008, Milan: Electa, 2008, pp. 96–106
- ISBN 9781789381009.
- ^ Agnoldomenico Pica, Storia della Triennale. 1918–1957, Milan: Edizioni del Milione, 1957.
- ISBN 9781789381009.
- ^ Michelangelo Sabatino, Pride in Modesty. Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
- ISBN 9781789381009.
- ^ Richard A. Etlin, Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890–1940. MIT Press, 1991, p.234
- ^ Albert Bassi & Laura Castagno, Giuseppe Pagano, Editori Laterza, Rome, 1994.
- ^ Giancarlo Palanti, "Notizie biografiche", Casabella-Costruzioni, no. 195-8, p.17