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Piero Portaluppi
STORIES

Piero Portaluppi:
architect and collector

Discover one of the most important Milanese architects of the first half of the 20th century and his great passion, the sundials.


Piero Portaluppiwas born in Milan in 1888. In 1910, he graduated in architecture, awarded the gold medal as the best graduate from the Polytechnic.

He began teaching at the University while starting his professional career.

In 1912, he started collaborating with Ettore Conti, an entrepreneur in the Italian electric sector, designing many hydroelectric power plants, mostly in Val Formazza. The most famous ones in Crevalodossola, Verampio, Valdo, and Cadarese.

Centrale idroelettrica di Cadarese
Cadarese hydroelectric power plant
Centrale idroelettrica di Crevoladossola
Crevoladossola hydroelectric power plant
Centrale idroelettrica di Valdo
Valdo hydroelectric power plant
Centrale idroelettrica di Verampio
Verampio hydroelectric power plant

In 1913, he married Lia Baglia, the niece of Conti, with whom he had two children, Luisa in 1914 and Oreste in 1917.

At the end of the Great War, he resumed his work as an architect, creating significant projects, as the renovation of Pinacoteca di Brera, Casa degli Atellani in Corso Magenta -which would become his residence – Palazzo della Banca Commerciale Italiana, and Casa Crespi in Corso Venezia.

Foto di famiglia al mare, anni Venti
Family photo at the beach, 1920s
Schizzo Portaluppi su Casa degli Atellani (1919-1921, pre bombardamento)
Portaluppi sketch on Casa degli Atellani (1919-1921, pre-bombing)
Planetario Hoepli 1929-1930
Planetario Hoepli, 1929-1930
Villa Necchi Campiglio, 1932-1935)
Villa Necchi Campiglio, 1932-1935)


In the 1930s, his professional activity focused on a series of significant public and private projects, characterized by a moderately modernist style.

With his extraordinary creativity, Portaluppi left a lasting mark on his city, as  in Villa Necchi Campiglio, the Arengario—now  Museo del Novecento— the Hoepli Planetarium in the gardens of Porta Venezia, Casa Corbellini-Wassermann in Viale Lombardia, and last but not least Casa Radici-Di Stefano, which hosts a small treasure: the Boschi Di Stefano House-museum.


After World War 2, he continued his academic career and was involved in several major projects, such as the transformation of the Convent of San Vittore into the Museum of Science and Technology and the conversion of the Ospedale Maggiore into the Università Statale.

In his later years, he focused primarily on his great passion, the sundials, which he had been collecting since 1920. 

He himself built sundials on various buildings, including three at the Casa degli Atellani and one on the façade of Villa Necchi Campiglio.

He died in Milan in 1967.

Piero Portaluppi e la sua collezione di meridiane a Casa Atellani
Piero Portaluppi and his collection of sundials at Casa Atellani
Meridiana a raggio riflesso sulla volta e le pareti del soggiorno nella Casa atellana
Reflected ray sundial on the vault and walls of the living room in the Atellan House, 1948
Meridiana disegnata da Portaluppi sulla Casa degli Atellani
Sundial designed by Portaluppi on the Casa degli Atellani, 1922

In 1978, upon the death of her mother Lia, Luisa donated her father’s collection of sundials to the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.

Piero Portaluppi, 1909
Piero Portaluppi, 1909

The Sundial Collection

Sundials are instruments that indicate the time using a gnomon—an object that, when exposed to sunlight, casts a shadow on surfaces marked with lines corresponding to the hours of the day. Gnomonics is the science that studies the art of constructing such instruments and their use.

Sundials are very ancient devices. Already used by the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks, they became widespread in the Alexandrian and Roman world and continued to be used in later epochs. Small-size sundials were produced in large quantities and competed against mechanical clocks, which were more expensive and, until the late 17th century, less accurate.

La collezione Portaluppi nell’allestimento precedente del Museo Poldi Pezzoli
The Portaluppi Collection in its previous display. The showcase was designed by Takashi Shimura between the late 1970s and early 1980s. Palma room – Poldi Pezzoli Museum

The Portaluppi Collection consists of over two hundred pieces, dating from the 16th to the 19th century, which document the various types, functions, and evolution of these ancient time-measuring instruments, and many makers, some very well-known.

Among these extraordinary objects, stands out the Navicula de Venetiis

Navicula

The collection includes ring sundials, ivory diptychs, as well as those made of wood and printed paper; pillar dials and horizontal dials, as the silver Butterfield-type ones.

l nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi
Il nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi, Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Il nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi, Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Il nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi, Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Il nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi, Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Il nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi, Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Il nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi, Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Il nuovo allestimento della collezione Portaluppi, Museo Poldi Pezzoli

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