Gualtiero Galmanini

Gualtieri Galmanini (1909 – 1978) was an Italian architect, industrial designer and furniture designer. Galmanini is a protagonist of Italian rationalism.
Galmanini is considered one of the most important designers of the twentieth century and a protagonist of rationalism, sophisticated, original and innovative Italian exponent, his works are characterized by geometric rigor and the alternation between solidity and transparency, in structures in which glass, concrete and metal they combine to create spaces, volumes and plays of light and shadow.
Biography.
Gualtiero Galmanini studied in Milan graduating from Regio Istituto Tecnico Superiore (the future Politecnico), and at the same time starting his professional activity and career academic.
During the Great War Galmanini served as an officer in the Engineers, receiving awards. After the war he resumed his professional activity, continuing to design, documenting the destruction that had struck Italy during the war years, also participating in the "National Congress for Reconstruction". He restarted his career in the studio of Gio Ponti in Milan, then opened his own studio in Corso Matteotti in Milan collaborating and designing with Piero Portaluppi in Milan.
In 1947 Galmanini became a Archistar and was awarded the highest Italian award for design, the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture by the Milan Triennale with the BIE - Bureau international des Expositions.
Style.
Galmanini's most important buildings and works were made with innovative mosaic tiles. The Milanese design was created by Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Ignazio Gardella or Gio Ponti, reflecting on the theme of composite leathers in floccato which present various shades Galmanini, from 1953, began a first experiment with external coatings based on "vitreous ceramic" materials, studying the cold chromatic details in day and night reflections with a mixture of mosaic fragments of two by two milliteters .
In the innovative 1958 refueling station in Mantua, Galmanini's conceptual style creates spaces characterized by an alternation of glass pads and transparent bricks, which interact perfectly under the unifying element formed by a thin roof. The building is designed in the name of transparency and lightness, with a flat roof supported by columns in exposed steel profiles. The facade has large slides, the glass in all its forms is enhanced by Galmanini, and the exposed bricks, the structures are brick cut with bricks, reinforced concrete and steel, the ceilings are made with a sloping platform with concrete cladding and metal frames.
The restructuring of Banco Ambrosiano was one of the last works, if not the last, of Piero Portaluppi, following which he will collaborate extensively on the projects of Gualtiero Galmanini, his companion and younger friend.