Silvio Gambini (1897 - 1948)

Son of Luigi, he was born in Teramo from a family of modest origins on
August 18, 1877. He first studied in his hometown, where he graduated in
1897 as a land surveyor at the V. Comi technical institute.
After settling in Busto Arsizio, since 1899 Gambini began a
collaborate as a draftsman for the municipal technical office, where
contributed to the design of the aqueduct and the street slaughterhouse
Pepper. From 1900 he joined the Office for the plan
Bust regulator as applied technician and simultaneously, as
assistant of the architect C. Crespi Balbi, followed the construction of
construction of the G. Carducci school.

Meanwhile in Busto he devoted himself to the construction of the arcades of the new cemetery and to the design of funeral kiosks for the Bossi, Milani and Decio families

From 1901 Gambini attended the studio of the engineer G. Guazzoni with whom he collaborated until 1915.

From 1903 he started a parallel independent activity, building the small villa, the weaving factory and the dyeing works of A. Castiglioni and the building complex of the Garavaglia company.

The reasons for this success must be sought in two distinct but complementary directions:

in the substantial novelty of his stylistic vein, the result of a mediation between Jugendstil and obvious references to some projects by E. Basile, L. Paterna Baldizzi and R. D'Aronco,

and in the industriousness of the busting textile industries, which had led to the rise of a new and ambitious entrepreneurial class,

capable of promoting a renewed aesthetic characterization in its representative buildings.

In 1909 is the Villa Leone in Busto, a work that sums up his first season as a designer and opens a new and autonomous formal experimentalism..

Even in the numerous houses built in the years 1909-12 in Busto, Gambini always maintained a high quality level.