Dec. 11 – He is an Architect and an engineer, a poet and a musician; a man of great talent. Gorizia-native Antonio Lasciac has left an indelible mark thanks to a wealth of architectural works in Gorizia as well as several capitals and cities of the East, especially in Egypt. Today - nearly 60 years after his death (1856-1946) - there is renewed interest in his work. The University of Trieste organized a two-day event dedicated to the well-known architect, for the importance of the work he carried out in Egypt, between the 19th and 20th centuries. In this period, Lasciac played an important role in the areas of Gorizia and Nova Gorica, now separated by an administrative border, but which at the time of his professional experience belonged to the territorial entity. In this area, on the heights of Hill Rafut, in 1912 Lasciac built his home, a particularly significant work for the architectural language inspired by the Mamluk tradition, made using modern construction techniques applied to neo-Islamic architecture. The architect brought home these elements after having worked in Egypt, as evidenced by the many works in Cairo, Alexandria and the Bosphorus. His villa used to be in the Austrian Empire, but it later became Italian, to then be divided between the Italian and the Yugoslavian Republics. Only recently, with the entry of Slovenia in the European Community, is the area officially part of the EU. The PhD program in Engineering Sciences - Integrated Design, Architecture and Civil Engineering of the University of Trieste decided to organize an international conference (which took place yesterday and today) with the participation of scholars from countries directly affected Lasciac’s work: Mercedes Volait (Paris), Bogo Zupancic (Ljubljana), Breda Miheliè (Ljubljana), Marjana Lutman (Ljubljana ), Ezio Godoli (Florence), Bernard O'Kane (Cairo) Milvia Giacomelli (Florence), Edino Valcovich (Trieste), Diana Barillari (Trieste), Alberto Sdegno (Trieste), Alessandra Marin (Trieste), Diego Kuzmin (Gorizia) and Andrea Nerozzi (Milan). (Gil)

AN EXHIBITION

In the Gorizia archives, particularly the State Archives, provide all the relevant original documentation used and created by the architect, which remained unpublished until a recent research by Diego Kuzmin. The Di Iorio Hall of the Isontina State Library in Gorizia, parallel to the conference, organized an exhibition of the drawings prepared by Lasciac in his youth. The event included a visit, for the conference participants, to the Lasciac villa on the Rafut, in the hope of promoting the recovery of the building, now in a state of serious neglect.