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BBPR
Memorial plaque, Milan
Practice information
FoundersGianluigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti, Ernesto Nathan Rogers
Founded1932
Dissolved1990s
LocationMilan, Italy
Significant works and honors
BuildingsTorre Velasca, Torre BBPR

BBPR was an architectural partnership founded in Milan, Italy in 1932.

Partnership

The BBPR studio was formed in Milan in 1932 in a climate described by Giorgio Ciucci as “oscillating between differing and contrasting positions.”[1] The name of the firm was an acronym derived from the first letter of each of the partners' family name: Gianluigi Banfi [it] (1910–1945), Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso [it] (1909–2004), Enrico Peressutti [it] (1908–1976), and Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909–1969).

Their contribution to the development of Rationalism is evident not only in their architecture but in their involvement with MIAR and the journal Quadrante born as a rival to Casabella. Their work held general appeal and was also appreciated and promoted by Edoardo Persico and Giuseppe Pagano at Casabella. Along with the editor Valentino Bompiani, the BBPR group is credited for the original idea for the Italian Civilisation building. The selection of the Guerrini-La Padula-Romano project was fraught with polemics since it is argued that their eulogy to the most Roman of architectural motif – the arch – is what won them first prize, a prize which some say deservedly belonged to the Milanese architects. Their adherence to Fascism was short-lived and they soon became members of the resistance: Banfi and Belgiojoso were imprisoned at the Mauthausen concentration camp where Banfi died and Rogers, being of Jewish descent, was forced into exile in Switzerland.

Milan. X Triennale. "Labyrinth for Youth", assembled at Parco Sempione.

The practice continued under the same name after the Second World War despite the death of Banfi in Mauthausen concentration camp.

The firm came to notice after World War II with the abstract design for the Monument to the Victims of Nazi Concentration Camps, erected within the Cimitero Monumentale di Milano. Located in the centre of an open plaza, its white, tubular frame encloses a glass cube that holds a mess tin containing blood-soaked earth from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria. Panels of black and white marble bear inscriptions about martyrdom and persecution, justice and freedom. Around the Monument, a series of tombstone-shaped plaques show an alphabetical list of names of Milanesi who died in concentration camps.[2]

BBPR reacted against the polemic of the International Style in 1954, with the creation of the Torre Velasca in Milan, complete with its abstract medieval references. The tower responds to its prominent location near the Milan Cathedral in the city's historic centre.

The firm was subsequently employed to create new interior spaces and exhibition designs for the museums housed within Milan's Castello Sforzesco, which had been severely damaged by allied bombing in 1943.

Buildings and projects

Gallery

Publications

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Studio BBPR.

References

  1. ^ Giorgio Ciucci, Gli architetti e il fascismo, 69; Enrico Guidoni, “L’E42, città della rappresentazione”, 20; Di Luciano ed., Enciclopedia dell'architettura, 92-3; Dizionario Enciclopedico dell'Architettura e Urbanistica, volume 1, 304–5
  2. ^ F. Marcello, “Problems of Abstraction. BBPR’s Monument to the Fallen in Concentration Camps, Milan (1946, 1950, 1955)” in K. B. Jones and S. Pilat (eds.) The Routledge companion to Italian Fascist architecture : reception and legacy. Routledge, New York, 2020, 491–506.
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