GIOVANNI KLAUS KOENIG
Giovanni Klaus Koening left us the testimonial of an intense and active life directed at the passion that inspired him, the themes he meausured himself against for half a century intending to insure mankind - within the limits of his own specific means - the freedom of a democratic life in a worthy and human environment, the goals to which he dedicated his entire life.
Born in Turin in 1924, he graduated with a degree in architecture from University of Florence in 1950 presenting a thesis on the Florentine race track at the Cascine Park.In 1964 he received the nomination to the faculty of architecture in Venice as professor of Caratteri distributivi (Distributive Caracters) and three years later that of History of contemporary architecture at the University of Florence, a position he continued to hold until 1989, the year of his death.
Together with Leonardo Benevolo and Pier Luigi Spadolini, he was one of the founders and promoters of the ISIA of Florence, author of numerous essays on architecture and design, among which are: L’invecchiamento dell’architettura moderna (The aging of modern architecture, Florence, 1963), in which, ahead of his time, he anounces the crisis of Rationalism; Architettura e comunicazione (Architecture and Communication, Florence, 1970), a systematic application of semiotics in the study of architecture.
Some of his most important essays on design have been recently collected in Il design è un pipistrello 1/2 topo e 1/2 uccello (Design is a bat: half bird and half rat, Florence, 1991) and, edited by Egidio Mucci, Architettura del Novecento (Architecture in the 20th century, Venice, 1995). He was codirector of Casabella, Vice director of Parametro, and collaborated with numerous newspapers and magazines, among which: Bollettino degli Ingegneri, Domus, Ingegneria Ferroviaria, La Nazione, L’Architettura, Modo, Ottagono.
He designed several architectural structures, together with R. Segoni, the Jumbo Tram in Milan, the electric motor for the Rome subway, the commuter train service of the FS, cars for the north Milan trains.
