Girotocchio

Born in Potenza on May 1, 1931, until 2007 he held the chair of architectural design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Federico II University of Naples. At the same faculty he was director of the School of Specialization in Industrial Design. In the seventies, together with Ettore Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi and others, he founded Global Tools, a counter-school of architecture and design that brought together the groups and people who in Italy covered the most advanced area of the so-called “radical architecture” around the magazines “Casabella” and “Spazio e Società”. He has always been involved in social work with the neighbourhood work with the children of the Trajan Rione, with the elderly of the Casa del Popolo in Ponticelli in the 1970s and, in recent years, his commitment with the youth of the Rione Sanità of Naples, of the territorial center Il Mammuth di Scampia and of the penal institute for minors in Nisida. He has combined research and education in the field of architecture and design, increasingly finding artistic expression as an inspiration for his life. In his expressive research, which ranges from the mythical, to the archaic, he uses sacred, basic materials (iron, copper, brass) with loving craftsmanship. In 1981 he won the Compasso d’Oro award for research on the Neapolitan coffee maker. In the last thirty years he has devoted himself intensely to creating an increasingly articulated and fruitful relationship between university research, architecture, design, sculpture, painting, art and craftsmanship while keeping the focus on purpose of human development through dialogue and the potential of creativity that it releases. In 2009, after a long preparatory research, he presented, in collaboration with the Milan Triennale and the New Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, the first edition of the Compasso di Tin Award, an initiative for new research in the field of design based on support human, eco-compatibility and degrowth. In 2014 he won the second Compasso d’Oro for his social commitment. Exhibitions dedicated to his work as an architect, designer, sculptor and painter were staged at the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennale, the Denver Museum, the MoMA in New York, the Chicago Biennale, the Copenhagen Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki, the Museum of Düsseldorf, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Pasinger Fabrik in Munich,the Tabakmuseum in Vienna, the Zitadelle Spandau in Berlin, the Royal Palace of Naples,the Pitti Palace in Florence, the Basilica Palladiana of Vicenza, the Gallery of Lucio Amelio Naples, the Castel dell’Ovo in Naples, the monumental Cloister of Santa Chiara in Naples, and the Royal Palace of Caserta.