Renzo Picasso (1880–1975) 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 ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, and

urban planner An urban planner (also known as town planner) is a professional who practices in the field of town planning, urban planning or city planning. An urban planner may focus on a specific area of practice and have a title such as city planner, town ...

and designer. He was the author of the early twentieth century utopian projects for the city of

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

, such as that for the

Piazza de Ferrari Piazza De Ferrari is the main square of Genoa. Situated in the heart of the city between the historical and the modern center, Piazza De Ferrari is renowned for its fountain, which was restored in recent years along with a major restyling of the s ...

, which suggested a development in height for those urban and metropolitan cities with a population of three million inhabitants or more. His numerous projects for

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

s (or rather the "cloudscratchers" as he used to call the high rising towers he dreamt to build, "grattanuvole") are set in a context of wide open spaces to ease human socialization. He was also the inventor of machines and devices characterized by the use of advanced technologies, such as the Motovol and the auto-scafopattino.

Projects

*Piazza De Ferrari, Genova, 1909 *New city, New Genova, 1913, Renzo Picasso

Bibliography

* *Alessandro Ravera, "Ai due capi di una stessa rotta; New York e Genova viste da Renzo Picasso" *Gian Luca Porcile, "Modelli urbani e tipologie edilizie: la città e il grattacielo nell'opera di Renzo Picasso" *Nicola Canessa, "Dal treno verticale alla macchina volante: Renzo Picasso e l'utopia della mobilità" *Luigi Berio
Viaggio in Liguria n°2
Renzo Picasso, FRCS Liguria, 2010

References

External links

Manfredi Beninati Manfredi Beninati is an Italian artist born in Palermo (Sicily) in 1970. A contemporary figurative painter, his oeuvre also covers installations, drawings, sculpture, collage and film. Biography After dropping out of both law and film school an ...

br>Renzo Picasso, Archivio Flavio Beninati, 2012

Renzo Picasso Homepage
Architects from Genoa Engineers from Genoa Urban designers 1880 births 1975 deaths {{italy-architect-stub