Gaetano Koch

Gaetano Koch ( born January 9, 1849 in Rome, † May 14, 1910 ) was an Italian architect of historicism.

Life

Koch's family came originally from Tyrol, his grandfather was the painter Joseph Anton Koch. His son, Augusto was also a painter from his marriage to Cassandra Ranaldi and was the father of Gaetano. Gaetano studied architecture and engineering, and found during the period of the Risorgimento, after Rome was in 1870 became the capital of a united Italy, in his hometown a rich field. Koch built in Rome about thirty representative buildings, mostly for the aristocracy and the upper middle class. Stylistically, he was guided by the masters of the Renaissance, such as the model of the Palazzo Farnese.

His main works include the Palazzo Koch, seat of the Italian central bank, Banca d' Italia, and the two semi- circular and symmetrical building in Piazza della Repubblica (Rome).

Koch designed further the Palazzo Mengarini and the Palazzo Margherita, now the headquarters of the United States Embassy at Via Veneto. Gaetano Koch worked a lot with his brother Ottaviano cooking. During the construction of the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II Koch was site manager and to have so spent that he died of pneumonia. Gaetano Koch was married to Matilde Fraschetti and had with her two sons.