Gino Pollini (19 January 1903 in

Rovereto Rovereto (; "wood of sessile oaks"; locally: ''Roveredo'') is a city and ''comune'' in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River. History Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the frontier b ...

– 25 January 1991 in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

) was an Italian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Life

Gino Pollini was born in Rovereto on January 19, 1903, to Luigi Pollini, a shopkeeper, and Teresa Miori Pollini. At the time of Pollini's birth,

was part of

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. After WWI, the city became part of the north eastern region of Trentino–Alto Adige in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. In 1921, he began studies at the Politecnico di Milano, taking courses off and on, and received his architecture degree in 1927. He married

Renata Melotti Renata is an Italian, Polish, Tatarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Germanian, Sweden, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Czech, and Lithuanian feminine given name. See Renatus. In Francophone countries there is a cognate name Renée. The following peopl ...

, sister of sculptor

Fausto Melotti Fausto Melotti (1901–1986) was an Italian sculptor, ceramicist, poet, and theorist. Life Fausto Melotti was born in the city of Rovereto, a city just east of Lake Garda in northeastern Italy in 1901. He had a sister, Renata Melotti, who was a ...

and cousin of theorist Carlo Belli, in February 1931. They had a child Maurizio in 1942.

Career

In 1926 Pollini joined

Gruppo 7 Gruppo 7 was a group of Italian architects who wanted to reform architecture by the adoption of Rationalism. It was formed in 1926 by Luigi Figini, Guido Frette, Sebastiano Larco, Gino Pollini, Carlo Enrico Rava, Giuseppe Terragni and Ubaldo Castagn ...

(

Sebastiano Larco Sebastiano is both a masculine Italian given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Sebastiano Antonio Tanara (1650–1724), Italian cardinal * Sebastiano Baggio (1913–1993), Italian clergyman * Sebastiano Bianchi (16th cent ...

Guido Frette Guido is a given name Latinised from the Old High German name Wido. It originated in Medieval Italy. Guido later became a male first name in Austria, Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Switzerland. The me ...

Carlo Enrico Rava Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to: * Carlo (name) *Monte Carlo * Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia *A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince ...

Luigi Figini is a fictional character featured in video games and related media released by Nintendo. Created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Luigi is portrayed as the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario, Nintendo's masc ...

Giuseppe Terragni Giuseppe Terragni (; 18 April 1904 – 19 July 1943) was an Italian architect who worked primarily under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and pioneered the Italian modern movement under the rubric of Rationalism. His most famous work is the C ...

Ubaldo Castagnoli Ubaldo is a masculine Italian and Spanish given name, from Germanic ''hug'' "mind" and ''bald'' "bold". Notable people with the name include: *Ubald of Gubbio (Ubaldo Baldassini) (c. 1084 – 1160), Italian bishop and Catholic saint * Guido Ubaldo ...

), and from 1929 he worked in collaboration with

. Figini & Pollini had a long association with the

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...

company from 1934 through 1957, designing many of their headquarters buildings at Ivrea. In 1927, Pollini was invited by the architect

Alberto Sartoris Alberto is the Romance version of the Latinized form (''Albertus'') of Germanic '' Albert''. It is used in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The diminutive forms are ''Albertito'' in Spain or ''Albertico'' in some parts of Latin America, Albe ...

to travel to

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

with Gruppo 7 members Rava and Libera to work on clarifying a new language for modernist architecture. He also taught architecture in Milan and Palermo. Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6365926.jpg, Figini & Pollini, church of the Madonna dei Poveri, Milan (1952–54). Photo by

Paolo Monti Paolo Monti (11 August 1908 – 29 November 1982) was an Italian photographer, known for his architectural photography. In his early period, Monti experimented with abstractionism as well as with effects such as blurring and diffraction. In 1 ...

, 1960 Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico - BEIC 6347016.jpg, Figini & Pollini,

head offices in

Ivrea Ivrea (; pms, Ivrèja ; ; lat, Eporedia) is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Situated on the road leading to the Aosta Valley (part of the medieval Via Francigena), it stradd ...

. New ICO yards, reading room. Photo by Paolo Monti, 1960

References

1903 births 1991 deaths People from Rovereto Modernist architects from Italy Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne members 20th-century Italian architects {{Italy-architect-stub