Piero Portaluppi Biography
Piero Portaluppi was born in Milan in 1888. In 1905 he obtained a diploma from the Carlo Cattaneo Technical Institute and enrolled at the Polytechnic, where he studied together with Enrico Agostino Griffini and Carlo Calzecchi. During his university years he began working as a caricaturist, collaborating with some Milanese satirical magazines such as "Il Babau", "AQuell Paese" and "Il Guerin Meschino". In September 1910 he graduated in architecture and received the gold medal awarded by the College of Engineers and Architects of Milan to the best graduate of the Polytechnic. The following year he was appointed "extraordinary assistant of Higher Architecture" in Gaetano Moretti's course, thus starting his academic career. At the same time, he started his professional activity. After some small jobs, such as decorations of facades and tombs, in 1912 he began a long collaboration with Ettore Conti, an important entrepreneur in the Italian electricity sector. Between 1912 and 1930, for the Conti electrical companies and related companies, Portaluppi designed numerous hydroelectric power plants, mainly in the Formazza valley. Among these, the most famous are Verampio (1912-1917), Valdo (1920-1923), Crevoladossola (1923-1924) and Cadarese (1925-1929). He also built the Grosio power plant (1918-1920) for the Milan Municipal Electricity Company. During the First World War, Portaluppi served in the military as an officer in the Engineers, first in the Veneto and then in Friuli. From 1916 he was seconded to Val Formazza for the reconstruction of the power plants destroyed by bombing and, after Caporetto, he requested to return to the fighting troops. During this period, he obtained a professorship in architecture. After the war, he resumed his professional activity, obtaining important commissions in 1919, including the headquarters of the Linificio e Canapificio Nazionale, the reform of the Pinacoteca di Brera, Villa Fossati and, above all, the Casa degli Atellani in Corso Magenta, Ettore's residence Accounts. The 1920s were a period of intense design activity. In addition to the prestigious commissions for the Palazzo della Banca Commerciale Italiana (1928-1932) and for the Hoepli Planetarium (1929-1930), he designed important residential buildings such as the palace for the Buonarroti-Carpaccio-Giotto company (1926-1930) and the house Crespi in Corso Venezia (1927-1930), among others. In the 1930s, his professional activity consolidated and took a moderately modernist direction, evident in the Villa del Sabato for the newlyweds created with BBPR for the V Triennale of 1933. After the Second World War, Portaluppi increased his involvement institutional, becoming president of the Order of Architects (1952-1963), member of the Superior Council for Fine Arts and Antiquities, of the National Research Council and of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Art, as well as president of the Technical Committee of the Teatro alla Scala . Despite a slowdown in his professional activity, he worked on important interventions at some of the most important historic buildings in Milan, such as Brera (1946-1963), the transformation of the San Vittore convent into the seat of the Museum of Science and Technology (1947- 1953), the Ospedale Maggiore transformed into a State University (from 1949), the Piccola Scala (1949-1955) and the churchyard of Piazza Duomo (1964). He also designed new buildings, such as the Milan headquarters of Ras in collaboration with Gio Ponti (1956-1962) and the student house at the Cité Universitaire in Paris (1952-1958). On 6 July 1967, Piero Portaluppi died in his home in Corso Magenta.
