Paolo Vietti-Violi

Paolo Vietti-Violi (June 20, 1882, Grandson, Switzerland - December 25, 1965, Vogogna, Italy) was an Italian architect.

Born in the French-speaking Switzerland from Italian parents who resided there for business, he studied in Geneva and Paris (at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts) from which he graduated in 1907. He moved to Milan where in 1914 he re-graduated at the Royal Polytechnic in order to practice his profession in Italy. He then began a career as a designer in the field of sports facilities such as racetracks, stadiums and their complementary structures. His design universe, however, was very large and varied, as evidenced by the different architectural aspects, which are identifiable in the rationalism of the time, still soaked from the original neo-classical French style.

He worked not only in Italy but also in several countries of the Central Europe; he also realized several projects in Turkey, then in India, East Africa and South America (including a Jockey Club in Argentina).

His skills gained him the respect of kings, rulers and aristocrats. In 1907 he married Maria Biraghi Lossetti, an aristocratic heiress of the Lords of Vogogna Biraghi Lossetti, who bore him the following year his son Emanuele, who became an architect and his collaborator in Milan. He was an artillery officer in Genoa during the First World War and in 1944 he became the Mayor of Vogogna during the partisan Republic of Ossola.

Vietti-Violi died in Vogogna at 83 on the Christmas Day of 1965. He was still working on the racecourse Parilly of Lyon and at the new church of Villadossola assisted by his assistant at the time, the architect Vladimiro Francioli.

The honors and offices list includes:

He held a sports architecture lessons on several occasions:

He debated in Istanbul, Turkey and the Academy of Fine Arts on the theme Architecture Sportiva. A street named after him in the Italian village of Vogogna, Via architect Paolo Vietti Violi.

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