Pietro Lingeri Biography
Pietro Lingeri was born on 25 January 1894 in Bolvedro, a hamlet in the municipality of Tremezzo, on the western shore of Lake Como, where he lived and worked as a plasterer and plasterer at a very young age. Having noticed his artistic talents from the master plasterer Invernizzi, Pietro obtained his father's consent to move to Milan, to attend modeling courses at the Higher School of Applied Arts in Industry and the schools for craftsmen at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera. At the outbreak of the First World War, he served in the military as an Alpine officer until the end of the conflict. In March 1920, Lingeri obtained the technical license diploma, with a "common" address, during the extraordinary session for soldiers and, in 1926, he graduated as professor of architectural drawing in Brera. The knowledge of families of entrepreneurs, who operated in the Larian context, proved fundamental for the start of his career: the first assignment as a designer for the Meier spouses was followed by the creation of two monuments to the fallen, with the collaboration of the painter Cristoforo De Amicis , some funerary shrines and various renovation works. Having opened the professional studio in Milan in Corso Vittorio Emanuele 26, he designs many Milanese shops, such as the Cassè restaurant, the Principe di Galles, the Biancardi beauty salon, all overlooking the Corso, the Manin hotel and the Europa hotel, whose innovative solutions will find immediate feedback in magazines across the Alps. The construction of the Milione gallery dates back to 1930, for the Ghiringhelli brothers, which pursues a cultural policy centered on updating and opening up towards the European artistic avant-garde. In the meantime, he continues his activity on Lake Como; in 1926 the participation, with Giuseppe Terragni, in the first competitions, including the one for the monument to the fallen of Como, won ex aequo in first instance, in the first exhibitions, such as the Sartoria Moderna, financed by industrialists from Como and entrusted to a composite group of modern architects, and the Sport Exhibition in Milan. An advocate since the beginning of the movement for the renewal of Italian architecture, participating in the experiments of Como rationalism, in 1927 he designed the headquarters of the Amila motorboat association in Tremezzo, hailed by Edoardo Persico as "the most appropriate to its purpose and the most suitable for place", and, in 1929, Villa Silvestri. In 1930 he obtained regular registration in the architects' register and, in the same years, distinguished himself by his membership in the CIAM, International Congresses of Modern Architecture, and, at the same time, in the Directory of the Architects' Union. He appears among the founders of the magazines "Quadrante", May 1933, the first authoritative spokesperson of abstractionism and rational architecture in Italy (with PM Bardi and M. Bontempelli) and "Valori primordiali", as among those of the Como group adhering to the MIAR , Movimento Italiano Architettura Razionale, with which he participated, in 1931, in the second exhibition of Rational Architecture in Rome, at the Bardi gallery, exhibiting the project on the Galleria del Milione and with which he signed, in 1933, the house for the artist on the lake at the Quinta Triennale, which will obtain the grand prize for architecture. In 1934 we find him in the winning group for the master plan of Como, where he built the Cattaneo Alchieri house with overlapping villas (1934) and, with Cattaneo, Origoni, Magnaghi, Terzaghi and Uslenghi, the headquarters of the Fascist Union of Industrial Workers (1938), which later became the trade union building (first prize in the competition). In Milan, where he was a member of the building hygiene commission, he continued his activity with Giuseppe Terragni: from 1933 to 1938 the Ghiringhelli, Toninello, Rustici (for the Rustici family of Tremezzo), Lavezzari and Rustici Comolli houses, in addition to the competitions: in Lugano for the cantonal library (1936), in Milan for the new trade fair (1937), with Mucchi, Pucci and Bottoni; in Rome, for the Littorio palace (1937-38) and for the reception and conference palace at E42 (1937-38). Rino Valdameri, president of the Brera Academy, commissioned public and private works from him: the construction of houses for artists on the Comacina Island, designed together with the island's master plan; the commission for the study of the Danteum, on the road to the Empire in Rome; the series of projects for the new headquarters of the academy, four solutions studied from 1934-35 to 1946, the first two of which with Terragni and, finally, a dismantled wooden hunting lodge in Rivolta d'Adda. The gold and silver medal at the Paris international exhibition and participation in the exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London date back to 1937, with the project of Villa Leoni, in Campo di Ossuccio (Como). In 1945 he became a member of the consultative commission for the new general plan of Milan, in 1946 a member of the MSA, Movement of Studies for Architecture, and of numerous urban planning commissions, so much so that in 1951 he was called to join the Institute National Institute of Urban Planning, INU. Elected president of the College of Architects of Milan, in 1958 he became an academic of San Luca. Less known is his intense professional activity after the Second World War, closely linked to the wealthy industrial and entrepreneurial clients of Milan, whether he entrusted him with the construction or renovation of his own homes or apartments in the city or holiday homes (Villa Bellorini in Stresa, Villa Bortoluzzi, in Varese, Villa Fraquelli in Griante, Villa Bordoli in Azzano, the arrangement of the Villa Albertoni Pirelli in Tremezzo and the De Angeli Frua property in Positano) and which involved him in the feverish phase of reconstruction and modernization of the Lombard capital. Lingeri contributes significantly to the typological definition of the condominium, designing numerous of them, popular as well as elegant, for entrepreneurs such as De Giorgi, Della Rosa and Giorgetti in the central and residential expansion areas of the city (via Sacchi, where, since 1947, his studio has been based professional, via Legnano, piazza Buonarroti, corso Sempione, as well as via Melchiorre Gioia, via Lomellina, via Calvairate, piazzale Dateo, via San Galdino, piazza Durante, viale Umbria, via Acerenza, Via Piranesi, via Novara, via Costa, via Petrella ). Milanese symbols of industrialization and tertiaryisation: the new headquarters of the "Centrale" in via Filodrammatici and the completion of via Boito and, for De Angeli Frua, in 1947, the office building, the factories in Saronno and Omegna and the summer camps in Regoledo and in Rimini, as well as office complexes, such as the headquarters of the ATM employees' aid and sickness fund (1965). He also took part in the season of self-sufficient neighborhoods as group leader coordinating the urban planning of the Vialba I INACASA (1956-64) and the Monte Olimpino IACP in Como (1956), both in collaboration with the architect. Cerutti, as well as designer of residential buildings in the aforementioned and at Comasina INACASA-IACPM (1954-58) and at Forlanini Nuovo in Milan (1960-62), INACASA in Biella (1951-53) and in Abbiategrasso (1952-58), as well as the eleven-storey INACASA "High House" at QT8 (1949-50), the experimental neighborhood of the eighth Triennale, with Luigi Zuccoli, winning the Grand Prix for Architecture at the ninth Triennale. However, he does not disdain the setting up of modern shops (Levi, in Milan, 1947-48; The collector, in Milan, 1948-49; Picard, in Genoa, 1954-60) and the projects for funerary aedicules (Levi tombs in Musocco , 1948; after receiving the national architecture award from the President of the Republic. In 1960 the XII Triennale hosted his personal exhibition.
