Gian Luigi Banfi 1910 - 1945

Born 2.4.1910 in Milano
Died 11.4.1945 in Gusen

Biography

Gian Luigi Banfi was born to parents Angelo Banfi and Alice Gandini. He attended the Parrini grammar school in Milan, where he was classmates with Lodovico Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressuti and Ernesto Rogers. Like them, he too graduated in architecture from Milan’s Technical University in 1931. Together they set up the architecture and town planning firm BBPR in 1932 – its title taken from the first letters of their names – which became a pioneer of rationalist architecture in Italy. BBPR’s covered a broad range of areas, including town planning, building design, interior furnishings and design, and it worked with the most important journals for architecture.

In 1932, Banfi and Belgiojoso won the Littorale d’Architettura architecture prize. In addition, BBPR developed the new town plans for Pavio (1933) and the Aosta Valley region (1936), designed the exhibition halls for the new Milan Trade Fair Centre (1939), worked on the tourism strategy for the Island of Elba (1939), and designed the post office for the E.U.R 42 district of Rome. BBPR became a member of CIAM (Comitato Internazionale Architettura Moderna). Banfi participated in congresses in Paris (1937) and Zürich (1939) and BBPR took these opportunities to establish contacts with Le Corbusier, Gropius, Giedion and other key representatives of classical modernism. They took a critical stance against provincialism and the isolation of Fascist architecture in Italy. BBPR’s members were an inseparable group with a common way of working, meaning that Banfi shared much with his colleagues not only in a professional context, but also in life planning and his political views. Belgiojoso described the process of moving from being supporters of Fascism to anti-Fascists to joining the resistance: ‘The process of renouncing Fascism was not the same for the four of us, even if it happened at the same time. One of the first cracks in our consciousness was certainly the proclamation of the empire in 1936 … The rhetoric of the proclamation with its implications for culture was certainly one of the reasons.’

The enactment of the Race Laws of 1938, which lead to the exclusion of their Jewish colleague Rogers from public life, resulted in an immediate and final break with the regime. Gian Luigi Banfi became publicly anti-Fascist and, in December 1942, co-founded the Partito d’Azione (Action Party) together with Parri, Calamandrei, Lombardi, La Malfa and his brother Arialdo Banfi. Key events were also the meetings with Ernesto Rossi and Spinelli. The office in the Via dei Chiostri became the centre of the conspiratorial activities of the Giustizia e Libertá (Justice and Liberty) movement. Banfi, who was called up again for military service in 1943, was in Chiavari on 8 September, where he organised a military resistance group against the German occupying forces. Back in Milan he again took an active role in the resistance. On 21 March 1944 he and Belgiojoso were arrested due to a denunciation, which led to the disbandment of the Partito d’Azione’s high command.

Banfi was imprisoned in the San Vittore jail in Milan. On 27 April 1944 he was deported from platform 21 of Milan’s station to the Fossoli transit camp. Having been transferred to the Bolzano transit camp on 25 July, he was deported to Mauthausen on 5 August and arrived there on 7 August. Finally he was taken to Gusen, where, according to an eye-witness report by the painter Aldo Carpi, he died on 10 April 1945 at 12:45pm. ‘The sun shone through his window, and above him on the sunny roof – on this magnificent day – was a pretty blackbird in a cage.’

Giuliano Banfi

ANED, Milan section

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

 

Sources:

Archive of Julia and Gian Luigi Banfi.

 

References:

Gian Luigi und Julia Banfi: Amore e Speranza [Love and Hope] (Milan 2009).

Lodovico Belgiojoso: Notte e Nebbia. Racconto di Gusen [Night and Fog. Tales of Gusen] (Parma 1996).

Ezio Bonfanti / Marco Porta: Cittá, Museo e Architettura [City, Museum and Architecture] (Milan 2009).

 

Enciclopedia Treccani und Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani [Italian Encyclopaedia of Science, Letters, and Arts and Biographical Dictrionary of Italians].

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