Virginio Colombo

Art Nouveau, Architect

1885 – 1927

6

Who was Virginio Colombo?

Virginio Colombo was a prolific architect who completed close to 50 works in Buenos Aires in just 21 years before his premature death at the age of 42.He died in Buenos Aires on July 22, 1927. Born in 1885 in Milan, Italy, he studied architecture in the Brera Academy under Giuseppe Sommaruga, the city's leading exponent of the Art Nouveau style. A fellow student, Antonio Sant'Elia, later became the number one advocate of Futurism in Italian architecture. During the early part of the 20th century there were many immigrant Italian architects working in Buenos Aires including Francesco Tamburini, who designed the Teatro Colón, Vittorio Meano, who designed the Argentine National Congress, Mario Palanti, who designed the Palacio Barolo, Francisco Gianotti who designed the Confitería El Molino, and Juan Antonio Buschiazzo who made alterations to the Centro Cultural Recoleta and designed the Italian Hospital. Of these architects, Colombo was one of the most active and creative.

He arrived in Buenos Aires in 1906, along with two other Italian architects, Aquiles de Lazzari and Mario Baroffio Covati, with a contract to carry out the decoration of the Palacio de Justicia. Soon after his arrival in Buenos Aires he became director of a studio and later set up his own, working mainly on projects for private clients, usually wealthy compatriots in business, industry or real estate who bought land for the construction of apartment buildings and shops for rental. These entrepreneurs liked architecture that optimized land use and that was stylistically what some might consider ostentatious and extravagant. Perhaps his most important public work was the designing of two pavilions for the Exposición Internacional del Centenario, for which he was awarded a Gold Medal.

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Born
1885
Milan
Nationality
  • Italy
Profession
Education
  • Brera Academy
Died
1927

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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