GIORGIO QUAZZA MEMORIAL 2003

On the late afternoon of June 26, 2003, during the 4th IFAC Symposium on "Robust Control Design" (Milano June 25 - 27, 2003), a celebration meeting in the memory of Giorgio Quazza in 25-th anniversary of his death was held. The picture, by Sergio M. Savaresi, was taken immediately after the Quazza memorial. The wife, the sister and the daughters of Giorgio Quazza were there (lady Quazza is the 5-th from left, first line, with the second daughter Giuliana at her left; the first daughter Silvia is the 5-th from right the sister is the first left at first line, the sister Ada is the first person at the left of the first line). In the group, there are, among others, the President of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) of that period, Vladimir Kucera (2nd from right, second line) of Czech Technical University in Prague. Moreover one can notice Tamer Basar (Coordinated Science Laboratory, Urbana-Champaign, USA, second line, 4th from right), Peter Dorato (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA, 3rd from left in the second line) and Petar Kokotovich (University of California at Santa Barbara, USA, first line, 6th from right) as well as many distinguished professors and engineers from Italy. In particular, in the 4th position from right in the first line, one can see Claudio Maffezzoni (Politecnico di Milano, b 1946 - d 2005) who, at the death of Giorgio Quazza, took over his teaching responsibility for the course of Process Control.

The picture was taken just outside the conference site, in the road named "Via del Vecchio Politecnico" ("Old Politecnico Road"). The Politecnico di Milano was indeed located here from its foundation in 1863 until 1927, when it moved to the current location of Piazza Leonardo da Vinci.

GIORGIO QUAZZA

Giorgio Quazza (photo 1, photo 2 ) was one of the towering figures of control engineering in the past century. He was not only a distinguished scientist and engineer, well known for his studies on power systems and process control, but also a person of great human qualities. He died in in the Alps on August 1978, in a tragic mountaineering accident.

One of the main awards of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), the Quazza Medal, was named after him. During the Quazza Memorial of 2003, a plaque was given to his family.

For more information see Three Italian Scholars (dedicated to Evangelisti, Quazza and Ruberti).