Angelo Mangiarotti was born in Milan on 26 February 1921. In 1948 he graduated in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. During this time he met Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Konrad Wachsmann. In 1955 returning from the United States, he opened a studio in Milan with Bruno Morassuti until 1960, inaugurating in 1989 the Tokyo office. Alongside his professional activity, which saw his works published in books, specialized magazines, and newspapers, he was busy teaching at Italian and foreign Universities and he also held several international seminars and conferences. The design activity of Angelo Mangiarotti, whose theoretical foundations were set forth in the book “In nome dell’architettura” published in 1987, tends to highlight the intrinsic properties of each object, in that only “objective” design can be immune from abuses on users and become generally recognizable. While the language of architecture is used to express a new man-environment relation, Mangiarotti attributes a very special role to plastic research in his designer activity. His studies, always carried out in full respect of the properties of materials, were aimed at defining the shape of the object as a quality of material.
Mangiarotti died on June 30, 2012 in Milan.
