Edoardo Detti Biography
Edoardo Detti was born in Florence in 1913. He graduated in 1940 from the Faculty of Architecture of Florence with professor Giovanni Michelucci, with whom he also shared his first experiences in the field of teaching as a design and design assistant. As a member of the Tuscan National Liberation Committee, he actively participated first in the war of liberation, from September 1943 to September 1944, and subsequently in the reconstruction of Florence. During this period, he took part in numerous commissions, including the Artistic Commission for Destroyed Florence, the Urban Planning Commission of the Municipality of Florence and the Commission of the Superintendency of Public Works of Tuscany. In the period 1946-1947, he collaborated with Michelucci on two projects for the Ponte San Niccolò competition and the competition for the Ponte Vecchio area: the project, developed in collaboration with Riccardo Gizdulich, Rolando Pagnini and Danilo Santi, entitled "City on the river, reconstruction plan for the area around the Ponte Vecchio", was awarded. Between 1948 and 1951, he worked as an architect in collaboration with Danilo Santi and Leonardo Savioli. During this period, he carried out several professional projects or participated in design competitions, including the construction of some private houses in Florence and Prato, the staging of the Conservatories exhibition at Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, the project of a hotel in Cagliari and the competition for a group of Ina-casa homes in Savona. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he was involved in organizing numerous exhibitions, also thanks to his participation in the board of directors of the permanent figurative arts exhibition La Strozzina. During one of these exhibitions, dedicated to FL Wright in 1951, he had the opportunity to meet the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa, with whom he collaborated on several important commissions, such as the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the Uffizi (1955- 1960), the church of Firenzuola (FI) (1956-1964), the Minerva hotel (1958-61) and the headquarters of the La Nuova Italia publishing house (1966-1973) in Florence. In parallel with his career as an architect, he also undertook a university career. In 1944 he obtained the position of teaching ornamental plastic at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence. Subsequently, in 1946, he took over the Decoration course and subsequently that of Distributional Characters, until he obtained the teaching qualification in both Interior Architecture and Urban Planning in 1951. Detti was also involved on the political front, convinced of the importance of dialogue between politics, urban planning and architecture to guarantee the development and progress of the country while respecting the territory. Elected to the city council in 1956, he was the protagonist of the "Sorgane controversy", in which he found himself in conflict with the maestro Michelucci and his friends Savioli and Ricci. From 1961 to 1964 he was councilor for urban planning in the municipality of Florence, within the centre-left coalition led by Giorgio La Pira. From 1971 to 1978 he held the position of president of the National Institute of Urban Planning, always giving the introductory speech at all its conferences and congresses. Detti died on December 24, 1984.
