Architect Roberto Gottardi, who is one of the architects featured in the documentary film Unfinished Spaces, will lecture at the University of Miami School of Architecture, on March 5th at 6:00pm.
Gottardi was born in Italy and graduated from the Instituto Superiore di Architettura di Venezia (Architecture Institute of Venice) in 1952, the same class as Massimo Vignelli. While there, one of the major influences on his formative style was his mentor Carlo Scarpa, whose craft approach to architecture refuted the tenets of Rationalist Modernism.
Gottardi worked in Milan for the firm BBPR under Ernesto Nathan Rogers until 1957 where he left for Caracas upon the invitation of a Venezuelan architect whom he had met in Rogers’ office. It is here in that he ended up working with fellow Italian Vittorio Garatti and Cuban architect Ricardo Porro in the Banco Obrero project, led by famed architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva.
Ricardo Porro invited Gottardi and Garatti to join him in buildinga new ambitious project of Havana’s new National Art Schools. As part of the three-man team who designed the Schools, Gottardi created the School of Dramatic Arts.
Following his work on the School of Dramatic Arts, Gottardi became a lecturer and professor on the architecture faculty at the University of Havana. He also designed the National Command Post of Agriculture (1967–1971), the Maravilla Pizzeria (1967–1968), the set design for Giron Theater(1981) and Dedalo Theater (1991) for choreographerRosario Cárdenas, and the remodeling of the Caracas Restaurant-Cafeteria (1997–1998).
Today he lives, teaches and practices architecture in Havana, and began working with the Cuban National Council of Conservation in 2008 to restore and complete the School of Dramatic Arts that had remained incomplete since 1965.
This lecture is free and open to the public. It will begin at 6 p.m. in the Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center’s Rinker Classroom at 1215 Dickinson Drive, Coral Gables Campus. For more information and directions, please visit website www.arc.miami.edu.
