Collection: Piero Bottoni

Piero Bottoni was born in 1903 in Milan where he graduated in Architecture in 1926. Since the very beginning, his complex background (Brera and Politecnico) led him to practise all fields of the physical environment transformation: from architecture to town planning, from object designing to interior architecture, in an intense relation with other arts (painting, sculpture, mosaic art, photography and cinema). He was one of the Italian protagonists of Rationalism and, after the war, even of its critical review. He took part in the Rational Architecture Exhibitions held in Rome in 1928 and 1931.

From 1929 to 1949 he was the Italian delegate to the Modern Architecture International Congresses (Ciam) and in such capacity he co-operated in 1933 in drawing up the Charta of Athens, the manifesto of the rational town planning (see the film by László Moholy-Nagy, between 6'39'' and 6'58'', where Bottoni is presented as Bodoni). In the same year he was among the promoters of the review "Quadrante". In 1945 he was member of the Board of the review "Metron" and in 1946 he was one of the founders of the Movimento Studi Architettura (Msa). Since 1953 he had been member of the National Council of Istituto Nazionale di Urbanistica (Inu).

In 1945-46 he was member of the National Council of the Chamber of Deputies and from 1956 to1964 he was Municipal Counsellor in Milan. Immediately after his degree, Giovanni Muzio asked him to collaborate to his course in the Architecture Faculty of Milan's Polytechnic but he was first relieved for political reasons in 1927 and subsequently in 1937. He went back to University as a "non-tenure" Professor of Town Planning in 1951, and then as an Assistant Professor of Set Design and Museology in 1964. In the meanwhile, he taught, from 1954 to 1965, Town Planning Technology at Engineering Faculty of Trieste. Since 1967 he had been Full Professor of Town Planning, and he had taught at Milan's Polytechnic up to the disciplinary lay-off of all Professors of Town Planning of the Council of the Architecture Faculty requested in 1971 by the Minister Misasi against the experimentation in teaching methodology in progress. He died in 1973 and he never taught again.