Obituary
Italian Architect Vittorio Gregotti Dies of Covid-19
The 92-year-old draftsman was being treated in Milan, Italy.
Italian architect, planner, editor, and theorist Vittorio Gregotti died on Sunday, March 15, in Milan due to pneumonia related to contracting Covid-19. He was 92.
Dario Franceschini, Italian culture minister, said in a public notice that he was deeply saddened by the loss of Gregotti, whom he described as a great draftsman.
“With deep sadness I learn of the loss of Professor Vittorio Gregotti,” Franceschini said. “(He was) a great Italian architect and urban planner who has given prestige to our country in the world. I hold the family close on this sad day.”
Born in Novara, Italy, Gregotti graduated from the Politecnico di Milano in 1952. After working under Italian architect Ernesto Rogers, a partner at BBPR Architects, Gregotti founded his firm Gregotti Associati International in 1974.
His studio is best known for its design of the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, the Arcimboldi Opera Theater in Milan, and the Belém Cultural Center in Lisbon, Portugal.
Gregotti also conceived the Pujiang New Town in Shanghai, a town designed with Italian-themed architecture as part of China’s 2001 Nine Towns policy.
Gregotti served as editor-in-chief of architecture magazine Casabella from 1955 to 1963.
A lecturer on architectural theory at various schools in Italy, Gregotti was invited to curate the Venice Biennale on multiple occasions in the 1970s.
In 2017, Gregotti closed his firm saying, “nobody cares about architecture anymore.”
Italian architect Stefano Boeri eulogised Gregotti saying: “A Master leaves.”
“A professor, editorialist, man of the institutions, who—always remaining above all an architect—made the history of our culture, conceiving architecture as a perspective on the whole world and the whole life. What a great sadness,” Boeri wrote on Twitter.
Gregotti is survived by his wife who is also reportedly being treated for the virus.
On Wednesday, Italy reported 683 new deaths in the coronavirus pandemic, bringing its total to 7,503 with 74,386 confirmed infections.
This article was first published by the Architect Magazine. Read the original version here.
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