ARCHITECTURE

Max Fabiani – Anton Laščak

Bauhaus

Leandro Marconi

Max Fabiani and Anton Laščak were two architects who considerably influenced Gorizia, Nova Gorizia, and beyond.

Max Fabiani was born in Kodbilj (now Cobidil, in Slovenia) on April 29, 1865. Due to the specific location where his family was based, he spoke three languages namely, Italian, German, and Slovenian. Max Fabiani belonged to a very large family, he was the eleventh of fourteen kids.
He finished high school in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and, afterward, he studied architecture at the Technisce Hochschule in Vienna.
During his life, he traveled to Greece, Italy, and more. In Italy, he discovered the architecture of Andrea Palladio, which greatly influenced his own.
Fabiani developed, among other masterpieces, the General Regulatory Plan of Ljubljana, Bielsko (Poland), and Gorizia always taking the human scale into account and adapting those General Regulatory Plans to nature.

Max Fabiani died in Gorizia in 1962, where he moved at the end of the First World War.

Anton Laščak
Anton Laščak was born nine years before Max Fabiani, in 1856, in Gorizia. He graduated in architecture at the age of 26 and then he moved to Alexandria, Egypt, which was destroyed at that time. He started building shopping malls, palaces, and more and he became one of the most known architects in Egypt.
In 1899 he had a futuristic and imaginative villa built in Moorish style, in Gorizia. The villa, called ‘Villa Rafut’ was visible to everyone since it was built on a hill.
In 1907, on an Egyptian commission, Anton Laščak built the Palace of khedivè in Istanbul (Turkey) and the Tahra Palace. Anton Laščak died in Cairo (Egypt) in 1946.

Bauhaus is an influential movement concerning art and design that began in 1919 in Weimar (Germany).  This movement was characterized by a geometric and abstract style, with little room for sentiment and emotion. Its aesthetic and characteristics continue to influence designers, architects, and artists even today. The Weimar school was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and was joined by Paul Klee in 1920. In 1922 Wassily Kandisky started to teach in the Weimar school among several other important artists. The school moved to Dessau in 1925 and finally arrived in Berlin in 1932. The movement came to its end due to the Nazis’ harassment, because the faculty refused to cooperate with the National Socialists.

Leandro Marconi was an architect who worked primarily in Warsaw. He was born in 1834 and died in 1919. His father, Enrico Marcon (Italian-Polish), was a well-known architect in the city. Under the guidance of his father, Marconi began his professional life as an architect. A villa he built for a powerful family of businessmen was his first major project. The building, which was completed in 1868, was deemed successful, and Marconi‘s career quickly took off for good. The Great Synagogue in Warsaw, which he designed and built until the end of the decade he wrote about, is the most well-known of his works. It was built in 1877 after two previous competitions for architects failed. At the same time, Marconi constructed a Renaissance-style palace on Foksal Street for Konstanty Zamoyski, a residence for the Branicki family in Frascati Gardens, and numerous palaces and churches outside of Warsaw. He oversaw the restoration of the Wilanów Palace, the summer home of Polish kings, for many years.