Francesco Gianotti (''Francisco'' in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

; April 4, 1881February 13, 1967) was an Italian architect who designed many important Art Nouveau buildings in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Born in 1881 in Lanzo, near

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, he graduated as an architect from the Fine Arts Academy of Turin in 1904, together with his brother, Giovanni Battista. In 1905 the two brothers took a post-graduate course together in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and later they designed various pavilions for the 1906 International Exhibition in Milan. Gianotti arrived in Buenos Aires, in 1909 where, together with his compatriot, Mario Palanti, he took charge of the construction and decoration of the Italian Pavilion at the International Centennial Exposition of 1910. In 1911 he opened his own studio and started to work on the design of residential houses and apartment buildings, using a mixture of Italian and French styles. Unlike his colleagues

Virginio Colombo Virginio Colombo (1884–1927) was a prolific Italian architect later active in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Biography Born in 1884 in Milan, Italy, Colombo studied architecture in the Brera Academy under Giuseppe Sommaruga, the city's leading expone ...

and Mario Palanti, who worked for wealthy compatriots, Gianotti was also commissioned by upper class Argentine clients for whom he undertook projects in the Beaux Arts style. Following work on a number of apartment buildings and private residences, Gianotti was commissioned to design the La Inmobiliaria Building (on Avenida de Mayo) in 1910, and Galería Güemes in

Florida Street Florida Street ( es, Calle Florida) is a popular shopping street in Downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina. A pedestrian street since 1971, some stretches have been pedestrianized since 1913. The pedestrian section as such starts at the intersection ...

, possibly one of his best works, in 1913; with 14 floors, and a height of 80 m, it was considered to be the first skyscraper in Buenos Aires. Two years later, in 1915, a famous local confectioner, Cayetano Brenna, commissioned him to design the Confitería El Molino. Located on the corner of Callao and Rivadavia Avenues, the building became a well-known landmark in the city. Until 1918 he designed mainly in the Art Nouveau style, but later employed a more orthodox Eclecticism combining

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

and

Moorish revival Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-19th centu ...

styles, notably in the Italian-American Navigation Company Building (1927) on 622

Diagonal Norte In geometry, a diagonal is a line segment joining two vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, when those vertices are not on the same edge. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word ''diagonal'' derives from the ancient Greek δ� ...

Avenue. Gianotti also created works of

Neoclassical architecture Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

, notably the ''El Mundo'' newspaper offices on 647 Diagonal Norte (1925), and the Schaffhausen Building (336 Reconquista St.), in 1932. Gianotti completed his last project in 1959, and he died in Buenos Aires on 13 February 1967.

References

*Mimi Bohm. ''Buenos Aires, Art Nouveau.'' Buenos Aires: Ediciones Xavier Verstraeten, 2005.
El Portal de arte y arquitectura en Internet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gianotti, Francesco 20th-century Italian architects Art Nouveau architects Accademia Albertina alumni People from Lanzo Torinese Italian emigrants to Argentina 1881 births 1967 deaths