Enrico Taglietti AO

Enrico Taglietti (1926-2019), architect, spent his early childhood in Milan, moving to Eritrea in the year leading up to World War 2. Returning to Milan, he studied architecture under prominent mentors including Bruno Zevi and Pier Luigi Nervi. He graduated in 1953, and attended a summer school in Marseilles with Le Corbusier. Working at the Milan Triennale, he met Alvo Aalto and Buckminster Fuller. The following year, he came to Australia with an exhibition of Italian design for David Jones. Having visited Canberra tasked with finding a site for the Italian Embassy, he fell in love with the city 'untouched by ugliness or history . . . [with its] inhuman overwhelming silence . . . infinity and eternity revealed.' Taglietti designed the Italian Embassy, and continued, like his compatriot Aldo Giurgola, to live in Canberra. He has designed several of its most distinguished homes as well as the Dickson Library, the Italian Club, the Apostolic Nunciature, Giralang Primary School and the War Memorial Annexe in the industrial precinct of Mitchell.