Guglielmo “Mino” Lusignoli – Architect

(Parma, 1920 – 2003)

Guglielmo “Mino” Lusignoli was born in Parma, in Bixio Street, in 1920 and, after achieving the diploma at the “P. Toschi” Art Institute, he completed his education at the Faculty of Architecture at the Politecnico University in Milan. In the Fifties of the 20^th Century, he married Anna Zanichelli, the partner and muse of his life, moving to the laboratory-house in Torelli Street. He shared the office, in the historic tower of Ponte Verdi, with architect Corrado Frattini. Versatile artist: architect, painter and sculptor, he taught for years at the Art Institute combining teaching with an intensive professional activity.
His is the winning project in 1954 for the Monument to the Resistance Fighter in Parma, in association with Marino Mazzacurati (1907-1969), the sculptor from Bologna.
For Barilla he creates in 1959 the great gateway in reticular metal structure for the “Exhibition of canned food” at the Parco Ducale in Parma, stepping in for Erberto Carboni in the engineering of exhibition stands for the Company.
We owe to him the projects of residential buildings for the Reconstruction Consortium, for the headquarter of Banca Monte in Cavour Street (1968-1974) with Giò Ponti, Antonio Fornaroli, Alberto Rosselli, Corrado Frattini and Pier Luigi Nervi, Villa Gandolfi, the “PEEP Sidoli” (public housing) neighborhood in Parma (1978), the Gardeners neighborhood in Bologna and a neighborhood in Bergamo with the colleagues Figini & Pollini.
But also a relentless participation to international exhibitions and epochal journeys (New York – where he meets Rauschenberg – URSS, China, Burma) that enable to stimulate new artistic views and open new experiments.

He died in Parma on March 23^rd, 2003.

Giancarlo Gonizzi