Marcello Canino

Marcello Canino was an Italian engineer and architect. He was the dean of the Faculty of Architecture in Naples from 1941 to 1952. His architectural research was closely tied to the cultural movements of Rome in the 1920s and 1930s, and within these cultural movements, he took an interest in the studies of Gustavo Giovannoni. In 1923, he designed two villas in Marechiaro in an eclectic style, in 1928 he participated in the competition for the Palazzo delle Poste in Naples without success, and in 1932 he won first prize in the competition for the Church of the Maddalena in Messina. 

In the 1930s, he was involved in the interventions of the Rione San Giuseppe-Carità in the creation of the administrative center of the city of Naples: between 1933 and 1937, he designed and built the Palazzo dell’Intendenza di Finanza, the Financial Offices, and the State Attorney’s Office, the INA building in Piazza Carità, and the Palazzo Matteotti, the seat of the province; in 1936, he designed Villa La Loggetta for the Cenzato family, inspired by classical Roman architecture. Two years later, he built the Palazzo della Banca d’Italia with Arnaldo Foschini and at the same time drafted the urban plan for the Mostra d’Oltremare and built the office building in the same complex, which was partially rebuilt after the war by Delia Maione. In 1939, he participated in the competition for the Palazzo degli Affari Esteri in Rome, and in 1942, in the same city, he designed a villa based on a strict symmetrical scheme: Villa Zegretti.

In 1932, he was the designer of a monument dedicated to the fascist Aurelio Padovani, inaugurated in 1934 in the center of Piazza Santa Maria degli Angeli in Pizzofalcone. In 1934, he also designed the pavilions of the Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri Station, the Sant’Agnello Station, and the Castellammare di Stabia Station of the Circumvesuviana railway. After the war, he remained active in various works, adapting to Italian rationalism, and was involved in several social housing projects, such as the Gemito district in Vomero (together with Alfredo Sbriziolo), and between 1950 and 1953 he designed a monolithic corner building in Piazza Municipio. On February 26, 1956, demolitions of the old thermal baths building in Castellammare di Stabia began to make way for a more modern one. He participated in a group for the competition of the Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari di Napoli for the Traiano district, winning it. The following year in Avellino, he designed the Palazzo di Giustizia, and in 1968, the Church of Santa Giuliana in Frasso Telesino.

Sources

• Wikipedia Marcello Canino