Test your Design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who was the multi talented twentieth century Italian architect, furniture designer, photographer, whose oak and glass table for Casa Orengo in 1949 sold for a world record price of $3,824,000 during a Christie’s Auction in New York in 2005?
He was born on May 6, 1905 in Turin, Italy, the son of the city’s most prominent architect and engineer. He initially studied art history prior to enrolling at the University of Turin’s School of Architecture, where he graduated in 1931.
He subsequently worked in his father’s practice and in 1933 won first prize in the competition for the Federazione Agricoltori headquarters in Cuneo. In the mid ‘30s, he began to design the interior of his home, the Casa Miller, and in 1938 completed the Casa Devalle, an interior that for baroque realism, exceeded that of his own home.
These two interiors together with the Ippica equestrian complex, established him as a forthright architect operating in an idiom entirely of his own operation, described in 1948 by American designer George Nelson as Turinese Baroque.
From the ‘40s till the mid ‘50s, he produced a spectacular portfolio of works and projects including domestic commissions, Alpine resorts, hotel interiors and commercial developments. It was however, the diversity of his own interests that his projects acquired such a personal resonance, and his designs include automobile racetracks, filing stations, and aircraft hangars.
Both as a designer and an individual, he articulated an enigmatic and romantic symbolism, as best expressed by the mobile sensuality of many of his furnishings.
In the first half of the ‘60s, he directed the team of architects responsible for the design of the INA-Casa district in Turin and he is placed second in the competition for the design of the Palazzo Lavoro building in Turin won by Pier Luigi Nervi for the 100th Anniversary celebration of the Unification of Italy in 1961.
In the last years of his life, he designed the two buildings that made him famous – the Camera di Commercio Building and the Teatro Regio Torino, both in Turin. Before his death in 1963, he completed the projects for the FIAT Directorial Center in Candiolo and the Club Mediterranean in Sestriere.
Last week’s question: Who is the Australian celebrity chef who is a member of the International Culinary panel of Singapore Airlines and has been on the Vogue Entertaining and Travel Produce awards?
Answer: Matt Moran
Winner: Cornelio Pineda of Cubao, QC
