Raimondo D'Aronco

At the age of 14, D’Aronco attended the Johanneum Baukunde in Graz, Austria-Hungary in 1871, a school for construction famous for training skilled masons and joiners, which still exists today.

After his return to Italy with his resolve, D’Aronco enrolled at a summer school of design in Gemona, winning first prize in the competition, which he entered upon completing the second course.

Upon discharge, he entered the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, Accademia di Belle Arti, where the teaching was not confined to any particular school of thought, enabling D’Aronco, whose ideas had not been shaped by any previous architectural education, to experiment freely with form and style.

Raimondo d’Aronco's rise to fame in Italy began with design competition for a monument to King Vittorio Emmanuele II to be built in Rome.

The stylistic features of his works can be classified in three groups: Revivalism, reinterpretation of the Ottoman forms, Art Nouveau and Vienna Secession.

Art Nouveau was first introduced to Istanbul by d'Aronco, and his designs reveal that he drew freely on Byzantine and Ottoman decoration for his inspiration.

The best known of these are Yildiz Palace pavilions and the Yildiz Ceramic Factory (1893–1907), the Janissary Museum and the Ministry of Agriculture (1898), the fountain of Abdulhamit II (1901), Karakoy Mosque (1903), the mausoleum for the Tunisian religious leader Sheikh Zafir Efendi (1905–1906), tomb within the cemetery of Fatih Mosque (1905), Cemil Bey House at Kireçburnu (1905), clock tower for the Hamidiye-i Etfal Hospital (1906).

The tiny mescid (little mosque) of Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa, which stood in Karaköy until modernization projects swept it away in 1958, was another work of comparable note.

Part of the credit for the rediscovery of D'Aronco's work is attributed to the Italian architect Manfredi Nicoletti who in 1955 wrote the very first biography on his Art Nouveau drawings and architectures.