(b Isola dei Liri, 9 Nov 1941). Italian architect, urban planner, theorist and teacher. In 1966 he worked on an urban plan for the bank of the River Tiber, Rome, with LAURA THERMES, with whom he formed a long partnership. He also trained in the office of Maurizio Sacripanti (b 1916), Rome, and graduated in 1971 from the Università La Sapienza, Rome, under Ludovico Quaroni. In the early 1970s he worked on a number of unexecuted competition designs, including those for the Zen district (1970) in Palermo, the Università degli Studi, Florence (1971), and the Università di Calabria (1973), Rende. In these a strongly geometric layout was used to investigate the individual buildings’ relationship to the natural and historic qualities of the site. The house (1977) at Fiumicino, on the other hand, reveals a didactic element in his work, as the various stages of its design are manifest in the building’s appearance. A narrative approach, in the historical sense, also appears in the Casa del Farmacista (1980; with Laura Thermes) at Gibellina, Sicily, which evokes archetypal forms. These projects underlie Purini’s view of architecture as an inquiry into the immutability of the basic principles of planning. The architect’s role is constantly to review compositional situations in the light of a creative scepticism. Notable later works include the residential complex of 65 flats (1983; with Laura Thermes) in Naples, which uses metaphorical references to the locality, and a project for the reconstruction (1984) of San Leucio, Caserta, an 18th-century industrial site. Purini taught at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura, Reggio Calabria (1977–80), and at the architectural faculty, Università La Sapienza, Rome (from 1981). He also worked on the editorial board of Controspazio in 1974–7.

• Purini, Franco
  • Theatre, §III, 4(ii)(a): Western world: 20th-century architecture
  • Thermes, Laura