Cisternoni of Livorno - Pasquale Poccianti

Pasquale Poccianti, the reservoirs' architect, was "Engineer to the Commune of Livorno" and "Architect of the Royal Works". Poccianti had trained at Florence's Accademia di Belle Arti. In his capacity as court architect, Poccianti worked on many prominent Tuscan buildings both private and municipal, including the grand ducal residence, the Palazzo Pitti. Poccianti was a keen disciple of the architect Gaspare Maria Paoletti, who had redesigned much of the Villa del Poggio Imperiale leaving only the main facade unchanged. In 1807, Giuseppe Cacialli redesigned the principal facade of the Villa from drawings by Poccianti.

In their use of monumental neoclassical architecture for industrial buildings, the Livorno cisterns can be compared with works of radical French neoclassicists Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Thus their dominating, over-scaled proportions emphasize the new prominence which was to be given throughout the 19th century to functional buildings proving mundane services — not only celebrating the innovations of the forthcoming industrial age but attempting to realise the Utopian approach to town planning envisaged from the late 18th century. Previously such buildings, when they existed, had been given little aesthetic architectural consideration and had often been hidden from view or, when unavoidably visible, disguised to conceal their true use. Occasionally the disguise could draw more attention than necessary, as was the case with the pumping station designed by Ludwig Persius built in Sanssouci Park in 1842, which was disguised as a grandiose mosque complete with minarets.