Pagano Pogatschnig, Giuseppe

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Pagano Pogatschnig, Giuseppe (1896–1945). Italian Rationalist, Fascist architect, and polemicist, who was a leading player in the arguments about the renaissance of Italian architecture in the 1930s, largely through his leadership (from 1931) of the influential architectural journal Casabella. His early works had a suggestion of Perret, Behrens, and the Vienna Sezession about them, but in 1928, with Gino Levi-Montalcini (1902–74), he designed one of the first monuments of Italian Rationalism, the Gualino Office Building, Turin (1928–9—destroyed). He prepared a plan for the Via Roma, Turin (1931—with the Turin branch of MIAR), designed a standardized industrialized system for building housing (1933) for the Fifth Triennale, and in 1932–5 built the Istituto di Fisica, University of Rome (destroyed). The Università Commerciale Bocconi (1937–41—destroyed) was remarkable for its adherence to geometry and schemes of proportion throughout the design. He died in Mauthausen concentration-camp, Austria, having renounced Fascism in 1942.

Bibliography

Melograni (1955);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Seta (1978, 1979);
Seta (ed.) (1976);
Jane Turner (1996);
Veronesi (1953)