Raimondo Tommaso D’Aronco (1857–1932) was an Italian architect renowned for his building designs in the style of Art Nouveau. He was the chief palace architect to the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II in Istanbul for 16 years. Early years D’Aronco was born 1857 in the provincial town of Gemona del Friuli, Udine, Italy (now in Friuli, at that time part of the Austrian Empire) into a family of builders for several generations. He completed the Gemona Arts and Trades School after the primary school. At the age of 14, D’Aronco attended the Johanneum Baukunde in Graz, Austria in 1871, a school for construction famous for training skilled masons and joiners, which still exists today. Already knowledgeable after years of practical experience with his father, he proved an outstanding student, and his teachers urged him to study architecture. 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. D’Aronco then volunteered for military service and worked as a fortifications engineer in Turin, which gave him experience in timber construction. 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. At the Academy, the ideas of Camillo Boito were dominant in design classes, which taught him, how to combine existing environment with other sources. At the end of the year, when he was still only 19 years old and full of enthusiasm, he was awarded first prize for architectural composition. Career 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. His design won the silver medal. Similar achievements at the competitions for the 1887 Venice Exhibition, the First Turin Exhibition of Architecture in 1890 and the Palermo National Exhibition in 1891 made him one of Italy's most promising young architects. In 1893, he was invited to Istanbul to prepare designs for the Istanbul Exhibition of Agriculture and Industry to be held in 1896. He arrived in August 1893, and had completed the project within a few months. Sultan Abdul Hamid II approved the designs, and the foundations were being laid