Born in 1896 in Parenzo, Istria (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) as Giuseppe Pogatschnig. After studying at the Lyceum in Trieste, he joined the Italian army during WWI and adopted the Italian name, Pagano. Among the early founders of the Fascist movement, he was associated with Nationalism and Fascist politics since 1920. He graduated in 1924 from the Royal School of Engineering of Turin (today the Polytechnic University) and started collaborating with Gino Levi-Montalcini. Together, they established themselves among the first and most representative members of the Rationalist movement in Italy. In 1931 he moved to Milan to work as an editor for the then recently founded magazine, La Casa Bella, becoming its director in 1933, when the magazine was bought by Editoriale Domus. Together with art critic Edoardo Persico, they changed the name to Casabella, revolutionized its graphic design and transformed a home and decoration magazine into a fundamental platform for the promotion of architectural debate. In 1936 he directed the VI Triennale of Milan together with painter Mario Sironi and started to publicly oppose the “representative architecture” typical to the Fascist party, which he officially left in 1942 becoming a member of the Resistance. Captured twice, imprisoned and tortured, he was later transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he died of pneumonia in 1945.