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Giovanni Michelazzi (Florence, 1879 – Florence 1920)

Architect

His starting as an architect on the Florentine scene is in 1902-03 with a minor work, but really meaningful considering his designing method, that will influence the Liberty style in Tuscany. However, we lost any traces of his work, and only in these last thirty days we have been able to outline his activity. His work has been valued by critics and he has a relevant place in the Italian Architecture of XX century. His first intervention concerned a couple of adding to a traditional small villa that was set in the IXI style avenue in Florence, viale del Poggio Imperiale. Substituting a classic portal, he juxtaposed a glass and iron penthouse, and restyled completely an overhanging balcony, while adding concrete mullions that hook to the wall by the means of a soft plasticity and with a tympanic extension. Thanks to this intervention, Michelazzi  clearly revealed the origin of his language, to be reconnected to French and Belgian Art Nouveau. At the same time he showed also his working method, that was based on very subtle elaborations of the decorative system, set on a wall level. It is possible to retrace some stylemes that will recur in his work, included some figures like the one of the dragon. If 1911 is the golden age for  Michelazzi thanks tot eh realization of his masterpiece, Casa-galleria Vichi in Florence, too, marks his involutional career that will lead him to design some buildings characterized by a backward stylistic salvage.  We can see the “villino Baroncelli in via Duprč” of 1914, as well as the neo Reinassance mansion in via Giovanni Prati in Florence of 1915.

Main works :

From  Wikipedia

Translation by  Irene de Angelis-Curtis