Max Fabiani Biography
Maximilian Fabiani, better known as Max Fabiani (Cobidil San Gregorio, 29 April 1865 – Gorizia, 18 August 1962), was an Italian architect and urban planner of Slovenian origin. After attending elementary school in San Daniele del Carso, where he showed great interest in mathematics, he attended high school at the Realschule in Ljubljana. He then continued his studies at the Bauschule and the Technische Hochschule polytechnic in Vienna, where he studied architecture between 1883 and 1884. After graduating (1892), he obtained a scholarship that gave him the opportunity to visit Asia Minor and almost the whole of Europe between 1892 and 1894. Returning to Austria, he collaborated in Otto Wagner's studio. He designed some important works in Vienna (such as the Urania and Casa Artaria, with the two statues of Alfonso Canciani) and in Trieste (the Narodni dom). After the Ljubljana earthquake of 1895, Fabiani designed some of the most important works in the reconstruction of the city (Krisper House, Kleinmaier House); he was also the author of the master plan which established the most significant features of the urban development of Ljubljana until the post-war period. After the First World War he moved to Gorizia, where he collaborated, with the drafting of the 1921 general plan, in the reconstruction of the city seriously damaged by the war; the awarding of this assignment was initially very troubled as the key role for large orders was highly coveted and rumors were spread about his proximity to the Slovenian and Austrian countries, rumors which were denied by Fabiani himself. In the 1930s and 1940s he moved to his native village of San Daniele del Carso where he became mayor and worked on the renovation of the village's fortifications as well as continuing his activity as an architect committed to designing monumental works during fascism. In 1952 he was proposed by the then President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic Alcide de Gasperi to the position of Senator for life to the President of the Republic Luigi Einaudi, but Fabiani declined the offer despite declaring himself "immensely grateful", due to his advanced age . He died in Gorizia in 1962 at the age of 97. The proposal of the Municipality of Štanjel, his hometown, to nominate him as an honorary citizen posthumously sparked various controversies, dividing public opinion between those who recognized the importance of his work and those who reproached him for his fascist past.
