Andrea Busiri Vici (Rome, 1903-1989) practiced his profession for over forty years. His family, whose history dates back to the 1700s, boasted illustrious names of academic architects from San Luca Academy (he himself will receive this appointment in 1972).
After his professional degree at the Politecnico di Milano in 1929, he had started working for some time with his older brothers Clemente and Michele, both graduated architect engineers. Andrea Busiri Vici’s personal itinerary often intertwines with that of his brothers.
Although very different personalities, the three brothers were united by an education in the profession handed down from father to son for several generations which by culture directed them towards similar concepts and aesthetic choices, and which took the past as a model.
Andrea Busiri Vici’s interiors returned an image of rigorous sumptuousness, a balance between functionality and refinement. By categorically refusing the industrial product, he made every element, both architectural and furnishing, “made to measure” by specialized craftsmen trained by him. Taking care of every single detail he harmoniously mixed ancient and modern. The ability to harmoniously mix old and new would become the unmistakable feature of all his future furnishings.
The number of its high-ranking clients would have grown rapidly, seeing in Busiri Vici the reassuring figure of the updated, cultured and tasteful architect, innovator and conservative at the same time.
The art that interested Andrea Busiri Vici was not that of his times, but that of the past, it almost seems that he creates his furnishings according to the period paintings that he himself procures for his clients, being a passionate and ravenous collector of ancient art himself. The references to Greek and Roman classicism were part of that neoclassical approach variously practiced in architecture and in the figurative and applied arts, throughout Europe. But Busiri Vici’s neoclassicism was not a product of fashions, it was the sincere expression of his culture and as such had a lasting character.
Among the most emblematic projects delivered by Andrea Busiri Vici, often carried out in collaboration with the brothers, in Italy and abroad: the building in via Bruxelles 47 in Rome (1931-34) project included in the V Triennale of 1933; the internal decoration of the Roman headquarters of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (1932-33); the Bises building, and the interior decorations of the apartments of Carlo and Sergio Bises in via San Valentino and that of the marquis Giovanni Cassis in piazza Santa Sabina (1935-37), also in Rome; Villa Biffo in Merate (1937-38); Villa La Busiriana in Fregene, Rome (1939); the headquarters of the Istituto Nazionale Luce in Rome (1937-40); the Italian Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair (1939); the house of Count Rudy Crespi in Palazzo Colonna (1946); the Roman headquarters of Lux Film (1947-48); the Standard shop (1948); the Circle of the Open Gate and Cinema Fiammetta (1949-50) all in Rome; Villa Paolozzi Spaulding in Rome (1949-52); Villa Matarazzo in San Paolo in Brazil (1950-51); his Roman house in via Ludovisi 45 (1950-52); the villas Zavaglia, Balella, Fre, La Margherita in Ansedonia, Tuscany (1951-60); the Villino Lia in La Spezia (1960-61); Wald House in Frankfurt (1964); Casa Zeri in Mentana, Rome (1964-67).