Los Angeles
County
Biographies
ARTURO
D. PIZZINAT
Arturo
D. Pizzinat is a man who had a youthful dream of achieving an independent
position in a new country. He started
early to achieve this dream by walking six miles to and from school each day
from his home in Vittorio Veneto, Treviso, Italy. In the United States he has risen to the top
of his field as the president of the Venetian Terrazzo and Mosaic Company,
Incorporated, and has made a significant artistic contribution to southern
California architecture.
Born
in Vittorio Veneto, Treviso, Italy, on March 14, 1897, Mr. Pizzinat is the son
of Giuseppe and Angela (Cimetta) Pizzinat. He is the third child of fourteen children,
ten boys and four girls. Mr. Pizzinat is
the only one of his family to come to the United States; his family has been
general contractors and builders in Venice, Italy, since the sixteenth century.
After
receiving his early education in Vittorio Veneto, Mr. Pizzinat attended art
school there and for three consecutive years won first prize for his excellent
blueprint specifications. He was awarded
a three year scholarship which enabled him to continue his education.
During
World War I Mr. Pizzinat fought in Italy as a sergeant with the Army Engineers
Corps of the Italian Army. At the end of
the War he left Italy and went to France in order to study the various methods
of terrazzo and mosaic installation before coming to California.
After
arriving in Los Angeles with very little money on November 23, 1923, he worked
for various firms as a terrazzo and mosaic specialist. In 1928 he organized his own firm in Los
Angeles where he first brought to the attention of architects in southern
California the flexibility of marble through the use of designs. Two of his early examples of these designs
are in the Los Angeles Post Office and Los Angeles County General
Hospital. In the past two decades his
efforts have been primarily devoted to modernizing the installation of terrazzo
so that it would be economical and practical.
Today,
as president of the Venetian Terrazzo and Mosaic Company, Inc., at 340 South
Palm Avenue in Alhambra, which he organized in 1949 with fifty-two employees,
and which now employs eighty-six, he is seeing his efforts become a
reality. Terrazzo is now being used in
schools, churches, hospitals and public buildings as well as recently becoming
extremely popular in modern home construction.
Mr. Pizzinat’s company has done the terrazzo
work at Forest Lawn, Hillside Memorial Cemetery, Calvary Cemetery, the Beverly
Hilton and Statler Hotels, St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, St. Mary’s
Hospital in Long Beach, Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, Daniel
Freeman Hospital in Inglewood, and St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton. He also did mosaic work at St. John’s
Seminary, Camarillo.
Mr.
Pizzinat is on the board of directors of the Garibalini
Society and a life member of that organization which he joined in 1927. He is also affiliated with the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks, Lodge Number 99 in Los Angeles, and is a member of
the Jonathan Club.
Six
months after arriving in the United States, Arturo Pizzinat met for the first
time, the girl who was to become his bride, and whose hometown had been only a
few miles from his hometown in Italy. He
and the former Miss Augusta Ragagnin were married on
August 5, 1924, in Los Angeles City Hall and spent their honeymoon on Santa
Catalina Island. Mr. and Mrs. Pizzinat
now live in San Marino and attend Saints Felicitas
and Perpetua Catholic Church there. They are the parents of two
children: Mrs. Robert (Nella) Ebert, who graduated from the University of Southern
California in 1952 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and certified public
accountant; and Arthur Pizzinat, Jr., who is the vice president of his father’s
firm and who resides at the family home.
Mrs. Ebert resides in San Marino with her husband and two children,
James and Regina. The junior Mr.
Pizzinat is the vice president of the Bachelors Club of Pasadena.
A
very tall man with greying curly hair, Mr. Pizzinat enjoys life and is
interested in people and world affairs.
He enjoys his family, creating his mosaics, relaxing by his swimming
pool, and hunting and fishing.
Well-travelled in the United States and Europe, Mr. Pizzinat took his
family to Italy and for a tour of Europe in 1949, in 1953 and in 1960 went on a
buying trip to Italy. In 1958 they
travelled by ship through the South Pacific—Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia,
Samoa, and the Fiji Islands.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Historical Volume & Reference Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park,
Rosemead, San Gabriel & Temple City, by Robert P. Studer,
Pages 697-700, Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California. 1962.
© 2013 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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