The assets of the Piero Portaluppi Foundation are officially transferred to FAI - Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano ETS. The announcement was made in Milan, in the spaces of Villa Necchi Campiglio, where the institution announced the conclusion of the Foundation’s activities and the devolution to FAI of the entire archive dedicated to the Milanese architect. The transfer takes place in agreement with the relevant Superintendencies and envisages that the material will be relocated to an area specifically set up inside the villa, a place that over time has become one of the main points of reference for knowledge of Portaluppi’s work.
“The purpose of donating the heritage of the Piero Portaluppi Foundation at Villa Necchi Campiglio to FAI,” said Marco Magnifico, president of FAI, “so that it can be preserved and enhanced forever and for all along with the Claudia Gian Ferrari, Alighiero and Emilietta De’ Micheli and Guido Sforni, comes from that same strain of Milanese families who consider it their duty to share with the community an important and representative nucleus of family properties. The devolution to FAI of the entire patrimony of the Piero Portaluppi Foundation, which has been an important protagonist of Milanese cultural life from 1999 to the present in its historic headquarters in Via Morozzo della Rocca, is a great honor that the heirs of the famous architect reserve for FAI, which, grateful and aware of the importance and weight of the new responsibility entrusted to it, is committed to giving maximum prominence to an important chapter in the history of Milan, of which Piero Portaluppi was an undisputed protagonist.”
“In the last two or three years with my sister Anna and my brother Piero we have taken note that the continuity of the Piero Portaluppi Foundation could no longer be based solely on the commitment of family members,” says Letizia CastelliniBaldissera, president of the Piero Portaluppi Foundation. “In evaluating who would be able to give continuity to the life of the Foundation and also have adequate space, the unanimous choice was to propose to FAI the donation of the entire archive, library and various objects. In view of the historical esteem towards FAI culminating in the collaboration of the restoration of Villa Necchi we therefore enthusiastically accepted the proposal to house in some spaces of the villa itself all the material belonging to the FPP. In deciding on the donation we also felt the desire and hope to make known not only Piero Portaluppi architect but also draftsman, humorist, puzzler, collector of sundials, author of films, curious and ironic man.”
“A jewel of Milan’s architectural and cultural offerings,” concludes Francesca Furst, Superintendent of Archives and Bibliography of Lombardy, “signed to the architect Portaluppi, guarded and enhanced by FAI, is now enriched by the heritage of projects and drawings that the architect himself created during his career,” comments City Council President Elena Buscemi. “Villa Necchi Campiglio is thus transformed into the work that preserves in itself, and shows to the world, the artistic and professional legacy of its creator. An operation that has something poetic about it and allows this monument, and the Italian cultural offer, to be incredibly enriched, making this wonderful Milanese villa an even more precious and interesting place to visit. With the devolution of the entire patrimony of the Portaluppi Foundation to FAI, authorized by the Ministry of Culture (Archival and Bibliographic Superintendence of Lombardy) after the reconnaissance of the already bound patrimony in 1999, today they find their ideal home in the spaces of Villa Necchi - a synthesis of tradition and modernity, already donated to FAI in 2001: Piero Portaluppi’s personal library (with the singular ”gnomonics“ collection) and archive, consisting of both paper and photographic materials and prototypes, as well as the bibliographic fonds of architects and designers that the Foundation has acquired and preserved over the years, such as that of Luciano Canella, to name but one. The operation is fully in line with the institutional aims of the Ministry of Culture, which constantly oversees that the archives are not only protected but also known and enjoyed by an increasingly vast and heterogeneous public so that we never lose that testimonial value inherent in the heritage that this extraordinary Milanese architect produced during the 20th century. This is an ”important part“ of architectural history that the state has the duty to safeguard, protect and make usable thanks to virtuous initiatives such as the one today and the indispensable need that ”memory,“ thanks to the protection and knowledge of the archival and bibliographic heritage, can always be handed down to all.”
The new archival core will include thousands of documents, drawings, plans, including that of Villa Necchi, as well as period photographs, autograph notes, sketches, postcards and audiovisual materials. Along with these will be transferred some books that belonged to the architect and the vast collection of volumes and journals on the history of architecture put together by the Foundation over the years. All the holdings will also be available for research, in collaboration with the Superintendencies and the Milan Polytechnic. The archive will arrive at Villa Necchi from the Foundation’s historic headquarters on Via Morozzo della Rocca, built by Portaluppi himself in the late 1930s. The transfer will also be joined by a selection of furniture and objects designed and used by the architect, about 20 pieces including desks, chairs, closets and sofas. They will be integrated into the museum itinerary and placed in the villa’s attic, redesigned for the occasion by architect Piero Castellini Baldissera, Portaluppi’s grandson. The exhibition will open to the public in May 2026 and will be an extension of the current tour of the villa, donated to FAI by the Necchi sisters in 2001 and recognized as a museum by the Lombardy Region. The organization also announced plans to hold temporary exhibitions, in-depth initiatives and special tours based on the new material, with the aim of further expanding knowledge of Portaluppi’s role in the history of 20th-century architecture and the development of the city of Milan.
Present at the announcement were Marco Magnifico, FAI president; Letizia Castellini Baldissera, president of the Piero Portaluppi Foundation; Elena Buscemi, president of the Milan City Council; and Francesca Furst, Soprintendente Archivistico e Bibliografico della Lombardia. The announcement comes after more than twenty-five years of activity of the Foundation, established in 1999 by the architect’s heirs with the aim of promoting studies, research and initiatives on his production.
Over the decades, the Foundation has organized numerous events, starting with the 2003 exhibition Piero Portaluppi. Wandering Line in 20th-century Italian Architecture, hosted at the Milan Triennale and accompanied by the publication of a monograph. 2004 saw exhibitions such as Marco Petrus’Milan Milan and Mario Sironi. The Art of Satire, flanked by conferences devoted to the themes of architecture, the city and the visual arts, with the participation of scholars such as Philippe Daverio, Guido Canella, Raffaele De Berti, Antonello Negri and Marco Romano. This was followed in 2005 by the exhibitions Piero Portaluppi Foundation: new acquisitions and Drawings of Architecture. Five Italian Stories, dedicated to the works of Aymonino, Canella, Gabetti and Isola, Portoghesi and Rossi. In 2015 the Foundation presented Portaluppi, Architettura Spettacolo - from Expo to Milan, while in 2016, on the occasion of the Salone del Mobile, it opened the architect’s Milanese apartment to the public. In the same year, Maria Mauti’s film L’Amatore, dedicated to his figure, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival.
More recent initiatives include the PP130 exhibition, set up in 2018 with 130 original pieces to celebrate the anniversary of Portaluppi’s birth. Piero Portaluppi, a new monographic volume edited by Piero Maranghi, came out in 2023. In 2017, 50 years after the architect’s death, a commemorative postage stamp was issued. With the closure of the Foundation and the transfer of the materials to FAI, Villa Necchi Campiglio now becomes the main center for the preservation and consultation of Piero Portaluppi’s archival legacy, bringing together in a single location documents, works and furnishings that restore the architect’s complex activity and network of relationships in twentieth-century culture.
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| Portaluppi Foundation donates its archives to FAI: new headquarters at Villa Necchi |
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