Gianni Avon Biography
He was born on 29 May 1922 in Spilimbergo to Elena Sverzut and Gino, a master mosaicist, owner of a mosaic art laboratory in Spilimbergo itself and then in Udine. After attending high school in Udine, in 1942 he enrolled at the University Institute of Architecture in Venice, but immediately interrupted his studies because he was called to perform military service. He graduated on 11 February 1947, defending the thesis Casa al Lido di Venezia. Among his classmates there were exponents of a fortunate generation of architects from Friuli or linked to this geographical-cultural area: Marcello D'Olivo, Rinaldo Fabbro, Angelo Masieri, Edoardo Gellner, Bruno Morassutti, Fernanda and Gino Valle. After a very brief collaboration with Marcello D'Olivo (with only three signed projects: a workshop, a villa and a fountain in the Dreher factory in Trieste), A. opened his own professional studio in Udine in 1948, in the premises of his father's company in via S. Martino, to move in 1952 to Viale della Stazione (now Europa Unita) and finally (1971) to the house-studio in Via Monte S. Marco. Among his first works: the Lighthouse on Mount Bernadia (1953-1957), a monument oriented towards the Russian front which commemorates the sacrifice of the Alpini and Italian soldiers in the Second World War. From the beginning of his professional activity, he represented the "reliable designer" for clients with considerable financial resources and high cultural sensitivity. Thus single-family villas and multi-storey apartments (condominiums) saw the light which are characterized by a refined research into spatial organisation, construction details, material combinations which fulfilled the expectations of the recipients and which show constant attention to traditional elements and motifs. of modernity, combined with grace and a refined compositional synthesis. Effectively, Nicoloso summarizes «Avon is also reassuring from a formal point of view for the new entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, who see in the architectural object a realization of their ambitions or the social status achieved» (2000). The experience of public planning of the INA casa programmes, or "Case Fanfani" as the economic and popular housing interventions were then called, which is aimed at an abstract, "virtual" client, is also placed in this perspective. In the years 1950-1962 A. designed (with the collaboration of the engineer Mario Giorgetti) INA houses in San Vito al Tagliamento, Tricesimo, Maiano, Magnano in Riviera, Pasian di Prato, Monfalcone, Tarcento. In the period 1957-1962 he designed (together with engineers Mario Bosco, Marco De Marco, Benito Vidussi) the new Villaggio del Sole district in Udine on the western outskirts of the city. Overall, INA casa entrusted the architect with eight assignments for a total of 374 apartments. Elements of the building typologies and architectural compositions of these interventions would be found in the contemporary and subsequent projects of holiday residences (the theme that until then represented his architecture) that were commissioned from him in Lignano. The projects and interventions carried out in the new Friulian seaside town (whose urban layout was conceived by the architect Marcello D'Olivo) occupy, in A.'s curriculum, a very important space (with sixty-eight projects) and constitute the most representative of his successful professional activity. In Lignano Pineta, between 1955 and 1960, A. signed more than ten projects a year, designing villas (thirty-one), hotels (seventeen), condominiums (seventeen) and beach pavilions. All this thanks to the full trust that the "Pineta" company had in him. But it was also the result of the notoriety acquired thanks to the constant presence of his projects in highly consulted specialized magazines accompanied by impressive photographic documentation (A. almost always made use of the images of the Milanese photographer Giorgio Casali). In any case, the quality of his architectural research and the correct execution of his projects were also recognized in the editorial offices of the most prestigious architecture magazines: his creations were published in «Casabella» (in the years of Ernesto Rogers' direction) and were critically illustrated by Bruno Zevi on «Architecture. Chronicles and history". Simultaneously with the Lignano experience, A. undertook other projects for holiday and spa resorts (Abano Terme, Caorle, Jesolo, Arta Terme, Cortina d'Ampezzo) giving shape to hotels, skyscrapers, residential and commercial complexes, houses health centers, service stations. If much of the architect's work is found in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region and, in particular, on the Udine-Lignano route and is characterized by various declinations in the field of living, other places (especially Longarone, in the Belluno area) and other themes (public buildings) distinguish his more than fifty-year professional season marked by prolific activity (the last of the projects signed by A., the restoration of the flooring and the liturgical adaptation of the cathedral of Tarcento, in 2005, bears the number 448 in study archive). A characteristic feature of his activity is that almost all the projects have been completed, an eloquent sign of the ability to interpret the needs of the customers and to combine the creative moment of the architectural design with the management of the construction site. From 1964 until 1972 he participated in the reconstruction of Longarone after the Vajont catastrophe. He designed the interesting cemetery of Muda Maè, in collaboration with the architects Francesco Tentori and Marco Zanuso, a work which enjoyed considerable critical success due to its particularly evocative setting, and addressed a new compositional theme: nursery school and middle school. Also in Longarone, A. assumed the function of "building coordinator" and drew up the preliminary plans of the floor plans and building types to be used in the reconstruction. In practice, he and the architect Tentori were commissioned to define the "tower houses", the "blocks in line" and the "terraced houses", in order to harmonize the expectations of the people who had lost their homes, with the the urban intervention plan contained in the Territorial Master Plan, developed by a team of teachers from the Institute of Architecture of Venice, led by the rector Giuseppe Samonà. The result of this unusual comparison of ideas would have made Francesco Tentori say («Spazio e Società», 2000) that the Samonà plan perhaps did not have avant-garde characteristics to interest international architecture magazines, but it was the best and most operational experience made in Longarone at that time. In 1964 he built the residential building in Viale della Vittoria in Udine which earned him the IN/ARCH (National Institute of Architecture) plaque. Starting from the Seventies, A. tackled new design themes with a public client: he developed the reorganization and expansion of numerous hospitals in the region (Maniago, Grado, Spilimbergo, San Daniele) as well as the maternal and child pavilion of the civil hospital of Udine, completed in 1984 and currently home to the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery (“Petracco Pavilion”) of the University Hospital. He designed school buildings: the complexes of Longarone (nursery school, 1966, middle school, 1966-1968), Manzano (nursery school, 1968-1972, middle school, 1972-1979) and Basiliano (middle school, 1968-1980, elementary school, 1970-1973); later, in 1977, he was one of the professionals called by the Agency for International Development for the reconstruction of schools in earthquake-stricken Friuli (Maniago elementary school and Travesio middle school, both in the province of Pordenone). He designed expansions and renovations of town halls (Cividale del Friuli, 1965-1969; Tricesimo, 1979; Tarcento, 1981-1984). Some of his best-known works characterize significant places for the community: in Udine the Palazzo delle Demonstrations (which played and continues to play a significant role in the cultural life of Udine, hosting theatrical performances, exhibitions and contemporary art collections) and adjoining swimming complex, the headquarters of the former Banca Cattolica del Veneto in Piazza Libertà, the restoration of the headquarters of the University in Palazzo Antonini; in Grado the new marine baths and the Congress Palace (with the Milanese architect Marco Zanuso and the Friulian engineers Emilio Daffarra and Fabio Lovaria); in Palmanova the restoration of the Gustavo Modena theater; in Passariano numerous restoration interventions in the Villa Manin complex. Since 1983 the architect's design studio. A. took the name “Avon associati”, with the direct participation of his children Elena and Giulio. He was a contract professor of architectural composition at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Udine from 1982 to 1986. His professional activity was rewarded on several occasions: in addition to the IN/ARCH recognition, in 1971 he received the Luciano Berti prize from CONI and in 1999 he won the Marcello D'Olivo prize in Lignano Sabbiadoro. It is worth remembering the attention paid by A. to the integration between architecture and furnishings: significant in this regard are the numerous furnishing projects (bank branches, office interiors, residential buildings) and furnishing accessories (armchairs and chairs, especially , created by qualified Friulian and Italian companies). Also worth mentioning are the numerous museum installations and temporary exhibitions and the importance given to the decoration of the designed works: collaborations with the sculptor Luciano Ceschia for the walls of the Banca Cattolica of Udine and with the painter Giuseppe Zigaina for the mosaic of the atrium of the Palamostre in Udine, the theater of the Longarone nursery school, the mosaic floor of the Terme di Grado). A. died in Udine on 28 October 2006.
