Davide Pacanowski was born on 29 December 1904 in Łódź (in some sources, the date 04.01.1905 can also be found; this is because his parents registered their son a few days after his birth. This was also the date on Pacanowski's documents. However, the actual date of birth was 29.12.1904), in a wealthy, intellectual Jewish family. His father, Herman Pacanowski, was the owner of a textile factory while his mother, Augusta Pacanowska, was a sculptor. Davide was the eldest of three siblings. His younger sisters were Felicia, who went to Paris in 1932 to study painting at the Ecole de Paris, and Erna, a pianist who died in a concentration camp with her mother.

Davide grew up in a family where culture, art and music were extremely important. When he was young, he dreamt of the possibility of studying abroad, where he could broaden his intellectual horizons. His desired destination was Italy, a country beloved by his parents, who often went there on holiday. His outstanding academic performance earned him a scholarship from the Italian government, which enabled him to study architecture at the Politecnico di Milano in 1923. During his studies, he worked as a draftsman and designer in the studios of architects such as Giovanni Muzio (1923-1925), Alberto Aplago-Novello and Guido Ferazza (1927-1928), Alessandro Minali (1928-1929), Giuseppe De Finetti (1925-1927) - a pupil of Adolf Loos - and Gio Ponti. All of the above inspired the young Pacanowski with the idea of architecture in its 'rich weave of rationalism, classicism and modernism'.

He completed his studies in 1928, presenting a design for a concert hall using the latest acoustic theories of sound reflection, applied at the time to the Salle Pleyel in Paris. In the same year he passed the state examination at the Royal School of Architecture in Rome (Regia Scuola Superiore di Architettura di Roma). From 1928 to 1929, he attended a course on the application of reinforced concrete taught by engineer Luigi Santarella. The technological aspect, innovation or the use of prefabricated elements would become an important part of Pacanowski's work.

After his studies, between 1929 and 1935, he went to the United Kingdom, where he received his first commissions in London, Leeds and Leicester. He then went to Paris, where he worked with the Societe d'Entreprise de Travaux Publics et Industriels, at the Baffrey - Hennebique studio and at the Bureau d'Etudes Delefosse Lecygne, using and deepening his knowledge of reinforced concrete. According to sources, Pacanowski met Le Corbusier during his stay in France, whom he often visited in his studio.

In 1935, he returned to Italy at the behest of the engineer Antonio Di Penta, who entrusted Pacanowski with his first major project: the Palazzo Di Penta on Piazza Vittoria in Campobasso in the Molise region. Di Penta wanted to convert an eclectic villa from 1920, then owned by Giuseppe Altobello, into a modern residential building. The Polish architect produced "a spectacular and sophisticated work of modern architecture". In this project, the architect boldly applied structural solutions that were innovative for the time, using reinforced concrete. The balanced combination of technological and structural experimentation with the integration of the volume into the urban landscape and the modernist face are the features of this building, which was a complete novelty in Italy at the time.

In 1937, Pacanowski was entered in the Register of Architects in Rome (Ordine degli Architetti di Roma), from which, by virtue of the racial regulations introduced (29.06.1939, legge 1054 "Disciplina dell'esercizio delle professioni da parte dei cittadini di razza ebraica"), he was struck off in 1940 by his Jewish origin (along with him, Angelo Di Castro, Romeo Di Castro, Umberto di Segni were struck off the list; on 27 January 2020, the names of all Jewish architects were restored to the list in a symbolic ceremony). Exclusion from the architects' union meant the termination of any professional activity, which made it impossible for Jewish architects to work for a living. In the same year (1940) he was arrested and interned first in Tuscany and then in Sepino in the Molise region, where he spent the next few years. According to sources, on the spot, thanks to the intercession of the archaeologist Amadeo Maiuri (1886-1963), Pacanowski was involved in the archaeological excavations of the Saepinum sannita/Altilia and carried out, lasting many years, the restoration of the mausoleum of Gaius Ennius Marsus. According to his daughter, Mirta, the Pacan architect became very close to the local community and was an extremely well-liked and respected personality. In 1950, he was awarded honorary citizenship of the Sepino municipality in recognition of his contribution, work and commitment. In 1954, Pacanowski was in turn granted Italian citizenship. The regularisation of his legal status in Italy was certainly a great relief for the architect especially after the troubled years of the war. It allowed him not only to pursue his professional career with full commitment, but also to focus on his private life. At the age of 54, Pacanowski married Lidia Sterle, with whom he lived to have three children: Ermanno, Andrea and Mirta.

After the war, Pacanowski returned fully to his professional work. In his long career (he worked as an architect almost to the end of his life), he designed single-family villas, residential buildings, services, offices and also schools, a church, mainly in Rome, Naples and also Campobasso, Sepino, Foggia. He participated in post-war bridge reconstruction works and in numerous competitions and tenders (including the reconstruction of the viaduct in Ariccia (1946), the reconstruction of the S. Niccolò bridge in Florence (1946), the reconstruction of the bridge over the Arno River in Terranova Bracciolini (1946) and in San Giovanni (1946)). In 1949 he designed the headquarters of the Polish Embassy in Rome. In Rome, he took part in the design of the section of the Roma Termini - Osteria del Curato and Roma Termini - Piazza Risorgimento metro lines (1960-61). In addition, Pacanowski was also involved in interior design and garden design.

Villas
Between 1946 and 1957, Pacanowski mainly realised residential architecture in Rome (palazzina SCIE in via S. A. Merici, 1949; Due palazzine a via Monti Parioli, 1951) and in Naples (palazzine Laudiero in via Petrarca, 1950; palazzine Borselli in via Petrarca, 1954; palazzina Baratta in via Nevio, 1957).

A landmark project turned out to be the Villa Crespi, realised between 1952 and 1955, located on the hillside of Posillipo in Naples. The district in the 1950s had become an attractive place for architects to experiment with residential architecture in its modern form. Pacanowski, demonstrating a remarkable mastery of integrating the massing into the profile of the hill, designed a modernist villa that dazzles with its open plan, overhanging, longitudinal terraces and roof garden.

Composed of three storeys, the villa's white façade blends with the face of the travertine rock. The first storey, which is at the level of the roadway, is the living area of the villa - a living room with an arched curved wall and a terrace onto which the brise-soleil casts its shadows. The following two floors house the bedrooms. The horizontal lines of the terraces are crossed by a massive column, which fits in perfectly with the neighbourhood of Mediterranean pines on either side of the villa - also part of the overall composition. In 1956, Epoca magazine (no. 324) listed Villa Crespi as one of the 'most beautiful in the world'. In the same year, photographs of the villa were exhibited at the 1956 International Architecture Exhibition in San Paolo Brazil.

Other villas designed in the same fashionable district of Naples were Villa Maderna (1959), with its characteristic flat roof that was originally covered with vegetation, and Villa Bruni Platania (1957). They are all examples of Le Corbusier's inspiration of refined, modernist architecture inscribed in the landscape, with an open plan and large terraces.

Residential buildings
Among the most important are the projects carried out in Naples (INA-CASA Secondigliano, 1957-1962), INA-CASA in Caserta (1956-1960) and in Benevento (INA Assitalia 1959-1965, INA-CASA Rione Libertà 1956-1965) or the residential building in via Petrarca in Naples (1950-1959). The buildings are characterised by modernist facades with regular terraces and clear inspiration from Le Corbusier's architecture.

Pacanowski also designed entire residential and commercial complexes, in which functional rigour, a well-considered plan for both architecture and green areas and the use of prefabricated elements were evident. Such an example is, designed in the 1980s, the residential complex at Castello di Cisterna in Naples, created for earthquake victims. The complex also included a nursery, kindergarten, primary school and sports centre.

Service buildings
Among the most important service building projects is the 5-storey office complex originally designed for the telecommunications company SET (TELECOM) in Naples (1959-1966). Today the building is the headquarters of the University of "Parthenope". Approximately 35,000 m2 will house lecture theatres, offices, secretarial offices, meeting rooms, a canteen and a multi-storey car park. Arranging the courtyard and green space around the building with tall trees was also part of the project.

Other examples of similar developments are the ENEA (then CNEN - Comitato Nazionalre per l'Energia Nucleare) buildings in Rome and the Carini glass factory (1975-1977).

Pacanowski's exceptional project is the Church of St Anthony of Padua in Foggia realised between 1966 and 1979.

The suggestive architecture is a kind of homage by Pacanowski to the architecture of Le Corbusier. The irregular reinforced concrete mass of the massive roof contrasts with the uneven body of the church made of curved walls covered with prefabricated concrete blocks in a warm shade of brown. The whole gives the impression of an extremely organic building with strong inspirations from the chapel at Ronchamp.

Pacanowski's designs were characterised by the care taken in inscribing the massing into the natural environment, the clarity of the architectural language, the originality of the structural elements and materials (with particular use of the potential of reinforced concrete), the result of the architect's experiments in the current of modern post-war architecture

"His logical process that unifies all his activities, in which the choice of forms, various visual solutions, structural ideas, landscape themes, form his own architectural 'style'. Mediterranean and Purist motifs, Loos's psychologism, Le Corbusier's style and technical innovations, are interwoven throughout his work, in which a strong condemnation of 'false architecture' and an articulated interest in the constructive potential of reinforced concrete and glass are evident."

Alongside architecture, Pacanowski's passion was the cultivation of plants and flowers. He even wrote several texts for magazines related to this subject. In one of them, he talked about his favourite type of cactus, Selenicereus grandiflorus (cereus multiflorus), which only blooms one night a year. His love of nature can be seen in the architect's realisations, which perfectly integrated his designs into the natural environment without dominating or degrading it. As Massimiliano Savorra writes: "His projects reflect a careful experimentalism, through which he seeks harmony between the designed space and the landscape".

In turn, M. L. Neri in his book Davide Pacanowski. Decano emphasises: "Nature/man/structure/form - these are the key words to interpret his dimension of architecture".

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Davide Pacanowski died in 1998 in Rome at the age of 92. With the special permission of a rabbi, his body was cremated and his ashes rest in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome. The architect's daughter Mirta remembers her father as follows:

"My father was liked by everyone. He had an extraordinary charisma. He never compromised and thus gave meaning to the great values of existence. He led an extraordinary life, he was constantly on the move. [...] My strongest memory is of his eyes, from which loyalty, joy and calmness shone."

During the writing of this text, support was shown by the architect's family: daughter Mirta Pacanowski and son Andrea Pacanowski, whom I would like to thank very much at this point.

In 2017, the family donated the entire archive related to the architect's work to the Central State Archives (Archivio Centrale dello Stato). The inventory with biography, list of projects and description of the documents produced can be downloaded in pdf form from the website .