Umberto Riva (1928-2021) is one of the last exponents of a generation that both put into practice modern architecture and challenged it. After graduating in 1959 at the IUAV in Venice (a school where the faculty at the time included great masters like Carlo Scarpa, Franco Albini, Bruno Zevi, Ignazio Gardella and Giancarlo De Carlo), Riva gained acclaim in the following decades thanks to projects of all kinds, which earned him numerous awards including the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Italian Architecture. This monograph analyzes his work in the fields of interior and exhibition design, examined for the first time in a comprehensive and chronologically extensive form thanks to in-depth research in the archives of Umberto Riva. In his domestic spaces in dialogue with Mediterranean nature, the exhibitions he set up at the Milan Triennale and the Palladio Museum in Vicenza, in his urban apartments and reinterpretation of the architecture and work of his mentors, the restless and radical character of his architectural approach emerges: a design philosophy in which the search for form implies more intimate reflections on living.

Gabriele Neri
Umberto Riva
Interiors and Exhibitions
isbn 9788862425278
book series Fuori Collana
current edition 9 / 2021
first edition 9 / 2021
language English
size 16,5x24cm
pages 256
print color
binding paperback
copertina download
the author
Gabriele Neri (Milan, 1982) teaches History of Architecture and Design at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Università della Svizzera italiana) and at the Politecnico di Milano. Architect, he holds a PhD in the history of architecture and urban planning. Former Boar...

Gabriele Neri (Milan, 1982) teaches History of Architecture and Design at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Università della Svizzera italiana) and at the Politecnico di Milano. Architect, he holds a PhD in the history of architecture and urban planning. Former Board Member of the Fondazione Museo del Design at Triennale Milano (2018–2021), he was appointed Weinberg Fellow in Architectural History and Preservation at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America (Columbia University, NY) for the spring semester 2022. Among his monographs, Gabriele Neri has published “Umberto Riva. Interiors and Exhibitions” (LetteraVentidue, 2017). He has curated various exhibitions, including “Forme. Umberto Riva architect designer” (Galleria Sozzani, Milan, 2019). Since 2010 he has written about architecture for Domenica, a cultural supplement of Il Sole 24 ore, and is on the editorial staff of the Swiss magazine Archi.

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