User:Tomaberl/sandbox

Franco Berlanda (21 November 1921 -) is an Italian architect, urbanist, and fighter in the Italian Liberation war. Born in Trento in 1921, he spent his youth running cross country. He first enrolled in architectural studies in Milan in 1942, alongside his service as an officer in the Alpini during Wolrd War II. After the armistice of September 8, 1943, he fled to Switzerland, where he was interned. In early 1944, together with the group of the so called "Swiss", including Giulio Einaudi, Ugo Pecchioli, Ruggero Cominotti, Walter Fillak, he crossed the Alps back into Italy, contributing to the liberation of the valley of Cogne. At the end of the war he entered the town of Turin as Commander in chief of the 2nd and 4th Garibaldi Divisons "Valli di Lanzo e Canavese". He completed his architectural studies at the Politecnico di Torino in 1947, and under the patronage of Ernesto Nathan Rogers, took part in the CIAM VII congress in Bergamo (1947) and in the CIAM summer schools in London (1951) and Venice (1952). He was architect for the Istituto Autonomo di Case Popolari (IACP) in Torino between 1950 and 1960. He served as representative for the Italian Communist Party in the provincial council of Torino between 1961 and 1965. He became partner with Gino Becker (1961-1971), and realised among other buildings, the apartment block in Piazza Adriano, Torino (1965). He started teaching in 1959 at the School of architecture in Torino, he was a course instructor at the Accademia Albertina in Torino between 1966 and 1969 and was called for a professorship at the Universita di Palermo in 1968. He was appointed as full professor of urbanism at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia in 1976. Here he also served as department chair between 1988 and 1994. After retiring from IUAV he continued his engagement towards remembering the Liberation war fought against fascism. He was awarded the Medal of the Liberation in 2015, and the honorary citizenship of Alpette (TO), where, in 2017, he inaugurated a monument to the memory of the liberation struggle. He donated his professional archive to the Architecture Library of the Politecnico di Torino.