Italo Insolera


Italo Insolera was an Italian architect, urban and land planner, and historian.
He published several books and essays dealing with the economic, social and cultural circumstances and conditions of urban development, and the use of the ancient town in the framework of metropolitan development. These issues were also the primary focus of his professional and academic work, where restoration and planning of historical towns and environmental systems prevail. He was especially interested in the relationship between archaeology and the modern city; he proposed solutions for the correct use of ancient towns that included traffic restriction, pedestrianization, and restoration. Some of these have been implemented by municipal governments, particularly in Rome.

Biography

Born in Turin in 1929, at age five he and his family moved to Rome. His father Filadelfo, a university teacher, ranked amongst the few who introduced the financial and actuarial science in Italy. His elder brother Delfino was editorial director at Zanichelli publisher in the 1970s and 1980s; his sister Melina, high-school teacher, wrote a number of grammar books.
In 1953, Insolera graduated from La Sapienza University, Rome, with a degree in Architecture. He became a licensed architect in 1954, and qualified for university teaching in urbanism in 1960. Meanwhile, he had married Anna Maria Bozzola ; she would be his partner during all his life. In 1962, he published Roma moderna. Un secolo di storia urbanistica, the first book dealing with urban planning and management in Rome from the unification of Italy to the present. The book has subsequently gone through six editions, with the most recent published in 2011.
He was added to the official register of land planners in 1971. From 1963 to 1971, he was a lecturer at Venice University's Institute of Architecture, and from 1971 to 1983 he was a tenured professor of Urban History at. He also taught courses and seminars at the universities of Rome, Florence, Naples, Paris, Kassel, Barcelona, Madrid.
During his tenure in Geneva, he founded and was for four years at the head of the Centre de Recherche sur la Rénovation Urbaine, sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Insolera also long played a leading role in numerous environmental battles over landscape conservation and protection, as well as urban architectural heritage protection and revitalization.
He died of natural causes at age 83 in his house in Monteverde, Rome at dawn on August 27, 2012. Italian urban planners deeply mourn his passing.
Since 2003, all of Insolera's professional documents, designs, photos and writings have been deemed of public interest and protected by the.

Planning

Regional Planning

Articles published on: Ferrania, Architettura, Urbanistica, :it:Comunità |Comunità, Casabella, Zodiac, Architèse, :de:Werk, Bauen + Wohnen|Werk, Centro Sociale, Ulisse, :it:Paese Sera|Paese Sera, Il Messaggero, Il Manifesto, La Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera.

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