Arch. Vito Sonzogni - Interview: "The primordial environment of Sardinia"

Sonzogni Vittorio

Zogno (Bergamo) 1924 - 2017

Architect

Vittorio (known as Vito) Sonzogni, graduated in Architecture from Milan Polytechnic in 1952. In the same year he began an intense professional activity, which he carried out mainly in Bergamo and its province, focusing on town planning, religious and residential architecture and the design of public buildings and tourist centres.

In the 1950s, attentive to the spatial and expressive potential of exposed reinforced concrete, he designed the sanctuary in Zogno, the parishes of Castro and Monterosso, and the underground church in Zingonia. In the early 1960s he worked with Giuseppe Pizzigoni on the design of the new Bishop's Seminary in the upper city of Bergamo. He built eighteen new churches and adapted many others to the new conciliar provisions.

In the field of public buildings his activity is equally conspicuous: he builds twenty-two school buildings in the province of Bergamo, making use of the experience of studying the vast school building plan launched after World War II in Germany; he realises the town halls of Serina, Villa d'Ogna and Castione and in Bergamo the headquarters of numerous banks and large residential, office and commercial complexes.

In the field of town planning, in addition to drawing up general regulatory plans, recovery plans and detailed plans for numerous municipalities in the Bergamo area, he promoted the Edil-Dalmine initiative in the 1950s and 1960s, providing housing for over three hundred families. In Sardinia, he built two tourist villages with granite residential units and in Tuscany he participated with Ignazio Gardella and Ludovico Quaroni in the design of the Punta Ala tourist centre.

Alongside his professional work, he also carried out important activities in public administration: he was councillor for Public Works for the Province of Bergamo, president of the Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari di Bergamo, and councillor for Transport, Public Works and Urban Planning for the Region of Lombardy.

News taken from: "Gli archivi di architettura in Lombardia. Censimento delle fonti", edited by G.L. Ciagà, published in 2003 by the Centro di Alti Studi sulle Arti Visive, with the collaboration of the Soprintendenza archivistica della Lombardia and the Politecnico di Milano.