Biography

Born in Potenza on May 1st 1931, until 2007 he held the chair of Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Federico II University of Naples.

At the same faculty he was director and lecturer of the School of Specialization in Industrial Design. In the seventies, together with Ettore Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi and others, he was among the founders of Global Tools, a counter-school of architecture and design that brought together the groups and people who in Italy covered the most advanced area of the so-called "radical architecture" around the magazines "Casabella" and "Spazio e società". The works born in those years are now part of the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Frac Centre in Orléans museum Madre di Napoli.

Always engaged in social work (the experience of working in the neighborhood with the children of the RioneTraiano, with the elderly of the Casa del Popolo of Ponticelli in the 70s and, in recent years, the commitment with the young people of the RioneSanità of Naples, of the Territorial Center Il Mammuth of Scampia and of the Criminal Institute for minors of Nisida remains fundamental), he has combined research and teaching in the field of architecture and design, approaching more and more artistic expression as the direct way of his life. In his expressive research, which ranges in the mythical, the archaic, the sacred, the poor materials (iron, copper, brass) are used with loving craftsmanship.

In 1981 he won Compasso d'Oro award Compasso d’Oro for research on the Neapolitan coffee maker. In the last thirty years he has dedicated himself intensely to the creation of an increasingly articulated and fruitful relationship between university research, architecture, design, sculpture, painting, art and craftsmanship, keeping at the center the purpose of human development through dialogue and the potential for creativity that emanates from it. In 2009, after extensive preparatory research, he presented, in collaboration with the Triennale di Milano and the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti di Milano, the first edition of the Compasso di Latta Award, an initiative for new research in the field of design in the name of human support, eco-compatibility and degrowth. In 2014 he won the second Compasso d'Oro for his social commitment.

Exhibitions dedicated to his activity as an architect, designer, sculptor and painter have been set up at the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennale, the Denver Museum, the MoMA in New York, the Chicago Biennale, the Copenhagen Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, the Düsseldorf Museum, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Pasinger Fabrik in Munich, the Tabakmuseum in Vienna, the Zitadelle Spandau in Berlin, the Royal Palace in Naples, Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Palladian Basilica in Vicenza, the Gallery of Lucio Amelio Naples, the Castel dell'Ovo in Naples, the Monumental Cloister of Santa Chiara in Naples, the Reggia di Caserta.