Paolo Portoghesi is an Italian architect, theorist, historian and professor of architecture at the University La Sapienza in Rome. He is a former President of the architectural section of the Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 (1979-92), Editor-in-chief of the journal Controspazio (1969-83), and dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano university (1968-78).
Portoghesi studied architecture at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Rome

University of Rome La Sapienza

The Sapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza – Università di Roma, formerly known as Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy...

, completing his studies in 1957. He began teaching the history of criticism at the same faculty in 1961. Portoghesi opened an architectural practice with architect-engineer Vittorio Gigliotti (born 1921) in Rome in 1964.

He has specialized in teaching and researching Classical architecture

Classical architecture

Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...

, especially Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 architecture, and in particular Borromini, but also Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

. His interest in more contemporary architecture coincided largely with that of his colleague in Rome, Bruno Zevi

Bruno Zevi

Bruno Zevi was an Italian architect, historian, professor, curator, author and editor. Zevi was a vocal critic of 'classicising' modern architecture and postmodernism.-University years:...

, in championing a more organic form of modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, evident in, for instance, the work of Victor Horta

Victor Horta

Victor, Baron Horta was a Belgian architect and designer. John Julius Norwich described him as "undoubtedly the key European Art Nouveau architect." Indeed, Horta is one of the most important names in Art Nouveau architecture; the construction of his Hôtel Tassel in Brussels in 1892-3 means that...

 and Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

, and in Italy with neorealism

Neorealism (art)

In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...

 and the Neo-Liberty style. This attitude has continued throughout Portoghesi's career, and is clearly visible in his own architecture. It is also evident in his concern for the studies of nature, brought to the fore in his more recent book Nature and Architecture (2000).

Selection of projects and works

• Casa Baldi, Rome (1959)
• Casa Andreis Scandriglia (1964)
• Casa Bevilacqua (1964)
• Theatre of Cagliari (1965)
• Casa Papanice Roma (1966)
• Church of Sacra Famiglia, Salerno (1969)
• The Grand Hotel, Khartoum, Sudan (1972-73)
• Royal Court, Amman, Jordan (1973)
• Mosque of Rome
  Mosque of Rome
  The Mosque of Rome It is located in the Acqua Acetosa area, at the foot of the Monti Parioli, north of the city. As well as being the city's mosque it is the seat of the Centro Culturale Islamico d'Italia ....
  
   (1974)
• Academy of Fine Arts, L'Aquila (1978-82)
• ENEL Condominium, Tarquinia (1981)
• Tegel residence, IBA Berlin
  International Building Exhibition Berlin
  The International Building Exhibition Berlin was an urban renewal project in Berlin, Germany. Initiated in 1979, it was completed in 1987, matching the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin. The IBA followed two distinct strategies: "careful urban renewal" and "critical...
  
  , Germany (1984-88)
• Le terme di Montecatini, Pistoia (1987)
• The Politeama Theatre, Catanzaro (1988)
• The garden and library of Calcata (1990)
• La piazza Leon Battista Alberti, Rimini (1990)
• Church of Santa Maria della Pace, Terni (1997)
• Grande Mosque, Strasburg, France (2000)
• The Rinascimento in Talenti park, Rome (2001)
• The Montpellier Gardens (Lattes), France
• The Central American Parliament, Esquipulas, Guatemala
• The Primavera restaurant, Moscow, Russia
• Town Hall square, Pirmasens, Germany.
• Headquarters of the Royalties Institute, St. Peter's College, Oxford, UK
• Public square, Shangai, China (2006)
• Strasbourg Mosque
  Strasbourg Mosque
  The Strasbourg Mosque , known in French as "La Grande Mosquée de Strasbourg", which dates from 1982, currently occupies a converted foie gras factory in the Impasse de mai in the centre of Strasbourg, near the law-courts. It is not the first mosque to be established in Strasbourg...
  
  , due for completion 2010
• Cimitero Nuovo di Cesena
  Cesena
  Cesena is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, south of Ravenna and west of Rimini, on the Savio River, co-chief of the Province of Forlì-Cesena. It is at the foot of the Apennines, and about 15 km from the Adriatic Sea.-History:Cesena was originally an Umbrian...
  
  , 2011

Awards

• Honoris Causa in Technical Sciences from the University of Lausanne
  University of Lausanne
  The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of theology, before being made a university in 1890. Today about 12,000 students and 2200 researchers study and work at the university...
  
  , Switzerland
• Legion d'Honneur
  Légion d'honneur
  The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
  
  , France.

External links

• Portoghesi biography