Born into a family of architects, the first of whom was his namesake Ignazio Gardella, he graduated in engineering from the Politecnico di Milano university in 1928. In his university years he came into contact with other young protagonists of the Milanese scene together with whom he took part in the creation of the Italian Modern Movement.
Professional activity
His long professional activity, which began before his graduation at the end of the 1920s with his father Arnaldo Gardella, produced an enormous quantity of projects and realizations.
In the same years he was a leader of important cultural events, like CIAM, or the first INU conferences.
International maestro
The figure of Gardella remained at the pinnacle of Italian architecture for all of the 1960s and '70s, with intense professional activity whose importance is proven by his presence in international publications. In the last phase of his life, Gardella, now among the eminences grises of Italian architecture, still produced significant projects, like the Faculty of Architecture of Genoa, which brought him once more to the front lines of the architectural debate.
The designer activity
Gardella's activity has had a determining role in the field of design as well, starting as early as 1947, when he founded the Azucena Agency with Luigi Caccia Dominioni, the first that inaugurated Italian design production of high quality. Gardella designed primarily decorative furniture objects.
Architecture according to Gardella
If one looks for Ignazio Gardella's style, one is likely to be disoriented. His projects, over the years, changed according to changing architectural tendencies, often anticipating them, but always containing elements that diverged from the current with which they might be associated. Gardella is one of the Italian Rationalists, but his use of local construction techniques, like the famous brick screen of the Dispensario in Alessandria, makes him in some ways a heretic. In the 1950s he came closer to regionalist currents, but his buildings also maintained an abstraction that distanced them from the most famous works of Neoliberty or Neorealism. In the 1960s and 1970s he seemed to adhere to a strictly professional form of practice like the Modern Movement or the International Style. His Uffici Alfa Romeo opposed the use of industrial materials and the development of a complex program. But Gardella strictly controlled the form, imposing a symmetrical composition. In the 1980s he seemed to stick to the Post Modern, but he did not in reality share its principles. Thus he himself said, "It is always difficult to say who are the fathers and who the sons. But Mario Ridolfi and I said, jokingly, that if we were really the fathers of all the works exhibited we would have to admit to having gone to bed with women of every type and every race.". In reality there are aspects of his work that remain the same throughout his long career and constitute a continuity. These aspects can be synthesized in two complementary points: - Gardella's architecture always maintains a composure that could be called 'classic'. This can be deduced from the extreme refinement of his details, which are comparable to those of his contemporary and friend Franco Albini, whether by control of the complete design of a building or because of the design of architectural spaces. In his architecture there is a preoccupation with and emphasis on the immediate, on the style of the moment, and a research for a kind of timelessness. - Complementing this aspect is his capacity to change registers, to adapt himself to the genius loci, as few other architects have succeeded to do. If the almost contemporary Case Borsalino in Alessandria are compared with the Casa alle Zattere in Venice, one realizes that there is a great difference. The materials have changed, as have the decorative elements and the conception of volume. This is clearly owed to his will to take up influences from the built environment or context.
The publications of Gardella, though they include many articles and projects published in all of the major international reviews, are not just of theoretical interest. A list of his publications is available at:
Interview with Ignazio Gardella by Antonio Monestiroli, in L'architettura secondo Gardella, Bari-Roma, Laterza,1997.
University professor
Gardella also had an important role in education, from his invitation in 1949 by Giuseppe Samonà to be part of the staff of the IUAV. His academic career brought him to the post of Professore Ordinario in 1962, which he held until 1975.
Awards
He won many prizes, among which are the: Premio Nazionale of Olivetti for Architecture, the 1977 Medaglia d'oro del Presidente della Repubblica ai benemeriti della Scuola, della Cultura e dell'Arte, Honorary membership in RIBA, and member of the Accademia di San Luca and socio onorario of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera.
