Franco Albini

Franco Albini was an Italian architect, urban planner and designer, adhering to the Italian rationalism movement. Born in Robbiate in 1905, in 1929 he graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Milan, where he later began collaborating with international architects and designers such as Gio Ponti, Mies Van der Rhoe, and Le Corbusier. In 1931 he opened his first professional associate studio in Milan in which, in the early years, he mainly made furniture designs and then devoted himself to social housing. Throughout his career he received numerous prizes and awards including The Olivetti Prize for Architecture, three Compasso d'Oro and the Royal Designer for Industry award from the Royal Society of London in 1971. In his production, from interiors of domestic places to industrial design works and museum installations, Albini always ensures an innovative, creative, modern style with a composite-constructive rigor that expresses high aesthetic levels. He died in Milan in 1977.