In the history of building, Giovanni Battista di Quadro is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Giovanni Battista di Quadro as Polish architect.
Giovanni Battista di Quadro was born at Lugano in 1510. His recorded nationality is Switzerland.
The Renaissance made the architect an individual with a signature, a theory and a reputation, working from drawings rather than on site.
He is recorded as architect.
An architect is judged by how a building is used a century after the drawings.
That the work was built in Switzerland shaped it: climate, materials, planning law and who holds the budget all decide what can actually be built.
Giovanni Battista di Quadro died in 1590, aged 80. The buildings remain, still in use by people who never knew the name - which is the particular afterlife architecture offers.
