Ignazio Gardella

Italian architect, engineer, and designer was born on March 30, 1905, in Milan. In 1931, he graduated in construction from the Milan Polytechnic and immediately showed his sympathies with a group of rationalists connected with the magazine Cassabella. In 1935, he worked on the restoration of the Borletti villa in Milan, which became key to his subsequent commissions: he was able to create a balance between seemingly incompatible elements. In the significant rationalist building Dispensario Antitubercolare (1936) in Alexandria, Gardella proved that the language of modern architecture can be highly sensitive to its setting and can adopt the attributes of a place. In 1949, he obtained a degree from the Istituto Universario di Architettura di Venezia, where he also taught from 1952 to 1975. He was a member of MSA, INU, and played an active role in CIAM. Together with Vico Magistretti, Giancarlo De Carlo, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers, he represented Italy at its last meeting in Otterlo (1959). In 1955, he won the Olivetti Prize for architecture. The echo of 1930s rationalism is also recognizable in the reconstruction of Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa (co-authored with A. Rossi, F. Reinhart; 1982). He wrote little about architecture, preferring to express his distinct stance from the canonical trends of the modern movement through his buildings.