Italian architectural historian
Roberto Gargiani (born September 1956) is an Italian architectural historian and a full professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
Biography.
Gargiani was born in September 1956 in Poggio a Caiano, Italy. He graduated in architecture in 1983 and received his PhD in 1992 at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence.
He was successively appointed associate professor of architectural history at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Normandie (ENSA) (1994–97), at the École d'Architecture de la Ville et des Territoires Marne-la-Vallée (1998-2000), and at the Faculty of Architecture of Roma Tre University (1998-2005), where he was then promoted to full professor.
In 2005, he was appointed professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he is the head of the Laboratory of Theory and History of Architecture 3 (LTH3) and where he served as Director of the Architecture Department (2011–15) and of the Archives de la construction moderne (2015–2017).
Research.
His early research, carried out during the 1980s and 1990s, focused on 20th French century architecture and interiors, on Auguste Perret and his school, and on Le Corbusier. History of construction, from antiquity to the contemporary era, is the subject of books and essays on a wide range of topics, spanning from the construction of the Louvre colonnade in reinforced stone, to the libraries of Henri Labrouste, to the question of polychromy and its implications on the concept of truth of materials, to Gottfried Semper’s principle of cladding and its influences on techniques in modern architecture. The outcome of the research on the history of construction led to the publication of edited collections of essays dedicated to the essential elements of architecture - column, floor, platform, etc. In the mid-1990s he also focused his research on techniques, materials and structures of European Renaissance architecture, which resulted in a book on Italian architecture of the 15th century. In the early 2000s his research on contemporary architecture, in particular on Rem Koolhaas, Archizoom Associati and Superstudio, resulted in several monographic essays and an exposition. In 2008, he was awarded with the ERC Advanced Grant for a research entitled "The surfaces of cement and reinforced concrete. A history of formwork and processing of the surface, 1870-2008". In his collection Treatise on Concrete, curated by EPFL Press, Roberto Gargiani investigated on the protagonists of 20th century concrete architecture (Le Corbusier, Louis I. Kahn and Pier Luigi Nervi), explored crucial historical periods for the development of concrete structures (18th century), and tackled the role of this material in 20th century art.
References.
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