Ivano Gianola Buildings and Projects / Edifici e Progetti

Ivano Gianola is one of the most important exponents of the socalled
Ticino School. This developed in the early 1970s as a loose
association of architects who thought in related ways. At the time,
their ambition was to set radical alternatives of a powerfully symbolic
nature against the increasing destruction of the environment
by new building in Ticino.
What made Gianola's buildings different from others of the Ticino
School from the outset was the subtle way they were bound
into their context, and their precise craftsmanship. The latter meant
that building after building, especially in terms of interior finish and
the coherence of all the details, became real total works of art. So
it is hardly surprising that Gianola created the most beautiful living
spaces in Ticino, in the best Arts-and-Crafts tradition.
This craft precision, combined with high formal and aesthetic
values, was probably also crucial to the fact that in the 1990s Gianola
was commissioned to design a series of public and private
buildings abroad. Thus his conversions and new buildings for the
Bayerische Vereinsbank in Schäfflerhof in Munich made a major
contribution to the new concept for the well-known Fünf Höfe site.
But Gianola's greatest success so far was winning an international
competition for redesigning the extensive site around the
ruins of the former »Palace« luxury hotel in Lugano. Here a theatre
seating over 1200 people, a modern art museum, housing and
offices, a municipal park and a new section of the lakeside promenade
will be created over the next five years. This is the biggest
project that the Canton of Ticino has ever awarded, and it will have
found an appropriate architect.
This first publication of the complete works of Gianola gives
the latest of the leading protagonists of the Ticino School a monograph
of his own.
Katia Accossato studied architecture in Milan and Venice. She
practises in Mendrisio and teaches at the Accademia di Architettura
di Mendrisio and at the Fachhochschule Liechtenstein. Nicola
Probst studied architecture in Lugano and Berkeley. He practises
in Lugano and teaches at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio.
Frank R. Werner is director of the Institut für Architekturgeschichte
und Architekturtheorie at the Bergische Universität in
Wuppertal. He studied painting, architecture and architectural history
in Mainz, Hanover and Stuttgart.