Aldo Rossi

Aldo Rossi (3 May 1931 – 4 September 1997) was an Italian architect and designer who achieved international recognition in four distinct areas: architectural theory, drawing and design and also product design. He was one of the leading proponents of the postmodern movement.
He was the first Italian to receive the Pritzker Prize for architecture.
Early life
He was born in Milan, Italy. After early education by the Somascan Religious Order and then at Alessandro Volta College in Lecco in 1949, he went to the school of architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan. His thesis advisor was Piero Portaluppi and he graduated in 1958.
In 1955, he had started writing for, and from 1959 was one of the editors of, the architectural magazine Casabella-Continuità, with the editor in chief Ernesto Nathan Rogers. Rossi left in 1964 when the chief editorship went to Gian Antonio Bernasconi. Rossi went on to work for Società magazine and Il_contemporaneo, making him one of the most active participants in the fervent cultural debate of the time.
His early articles cover architects such as Alessandro Antonelli, Mario Ridolfi, Auguste Perret and Emil Kaufmann and much of this material became part of his second book, Scritti scelti sull'architettura e la città 1956-1972 (Selected writings on architecture and the city from 1956 to 1972). He married the Swiss actress Sonia Gessner, who introduced him to the world of film and theatre. Culture and his family became central to his life. His son Fausto was active in movie-making both in front of and behind the camera. His daughter Vera was involved with theatre.
Career
He began his professional career at the studio of Ignazio Gardella in 1956, moving on to the studio of Marco Zanuso. In 1963 also he began teaching, firstly as an assistant to Ludovico Quaroni (1963) at the school of urban planning in Arezzo, then to Carlo Aymonino at the Institute of Architecture in Venice. In 1965, he was appointed lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Milan, and the following year he published The Architecture of the City, which soon became a classic of architectural literature.
His professional career, initially dedicated to architectural theory and small building work took a huge leap forward when Aymonino allowed Rossi to design part of the Monte Amiata complex in the Gallaratese quarter of Milan. In 1971, he won the design competition for the extension of the San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena, which made him internationally famous.
After suspension from teaching in Italy in those politically troubled times, he moved to ETH Zurich, occupying the chair in architectural design from 1971 to 1975.
In 1973, he was director of the International Architecture Section at the XV Milan Triennial Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Architecture, where he presented, among others, his student Arduino Cantafora. Rossi's design ideas for the exhibition are explained in the International Architecture Catalogue and in a 16mm documentary Ornament and crime directed by Luigi Durissi and produced along with Gianni Braghieri and Franco Raggi. In 1975, Rossi returned to the teaching profession in Italy, teaching architectural composition in Venice.
In 1979, he was made a member of the prestigious Academy of Saint Luke. Meanwhile, there was international interest in his skills. He taught at several universities in the United States, including Cooper Union in New York City and Cornell University in Ithaca (New York State). At Cornell, he participated in the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies joint venture with New York's Museum of Modern Art, travelling to China and Hong Kong and attending conferences in South America.
In 1981, he published his autobiography, A scientific autobiography. In this work the author, "in discrete disorder", brings back memories, objects, places, forms, literature notes, quotes, and insights and tries to "... go over things or impressions, describe, or look for ways to describe." In the same year, he won first prize at the international competition for the design of an apartment block on the corner of Kochstraße and Wilhelmstraße in central Berlin.
In 1984, together with Ignazio Gardella and Fabio Reinhart, he won the competition for the renovation of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, which was not fully completed until 1991. In 1985 and 1986, Rossi was director of the 3rd (respectively 4th) International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale including further away display spaces such as Villa Farsetti in Santa Maria di Sala.
In 1987, he won two international competitions: one for a site at the Parc de la Villette in Paris, the other for the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, which was never brought to fruition. In 1989, he continued product design work for Unifor (now part of Molteni Furniture) and Alessi. His espresso maker La Cupola, designed for Alessi came out in 1988.
In 1990, he was awarded the Pritzker Prize. The city of Fukuoka in Japan honoured him for his work on the hotel complex The Palace and he won the 1991 Thomas Jefferson Medal in Public Architecture from the American Institute of Architects. These prestigious awards were followed by exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, Belgium.
In 1996, he became an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the following year he received their special cultural award in architecture and design. He died in Milan on 4 September 1997, following a car accident. Posthumously he received the Torre Guinigi prize for his contribution to urban studies and the Seaside Prize of the Seaside Institute, Florida, where he had built a detached family home in 1995.
On appeal, his proposals won the 1999 competition for the restoration of the Teatro La Fenice, Venice and it reopened in 2004. In 1999, the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Bologna, based in Cesena, was named after him.
Work
His earliest works of the 1960s were mostly theoretical and displayed a simultaneous influence of 1920s Italian modernism (see Giuseppe Terragni), classicist influences of Viennese architect Adolf Loos, and the reflections of the painter Giorgio de Chirico. A trip to the Soviet Union to study Stalinist architecture also left a marked impression.
In his writings, Rossi criticized the lack of understanding of the city in current architectural practice. He argued that a city must be studied and valued as something constructed over time; of particular interest are urban artefacts that withstand the passage of time. Rossi held that the city remembers its past (our "collective memory"), and that we use that memory through monuments; that is, monuments give structure to the city. Inspired by the persistence of Europe's ancient cities, Rossi strove to create similar structures immune to obsolescence.
He became extremely influential in the late 1970s and 1980s, as his body of built work expanded and his theories were promoted in his books The Architecture of the City (L'architettura della città, 1966) and A Scientific Autobiography (Autobiografia scientifica, 1981). The largest of Rossi's projects in terms of scale was the San Cataldo Cemetery, in Modena, Italy, which began in 1971, but is yet to be completed. Rossi referred to it as a "city of the dead".
The distinctive independence of his buildings is reflected in the micro-architectures of the products designed by Rossi. In the 1980s, Rossi designed stainless steel cafetières and other products for Alessi, Pirelli, and others.
Exhibits
For the Venice Biennale in 1979, Rossi designed a floating Teatro del Mondo that seated 250 people. For the Venice Biennale in 1984, he designed a triumphal arch at the entrance to the exhibition site. In 2006 two pylons based on an original 1989 design by Aldo Rossi were erected in front of the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht by the Delft architectural firm Ufo Architecten. The MAXXI museum in Rome staged a retrospective titled Aldo Rossi, The Architect and the Cities in 2021.
Awards
Aldo Rossi won the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1990. Ada Louise Huxtable, architectural critic and Pritzker juror, has described Rossi as "a poet who happens to be an architect."
Architecture
1960 Villa ai Ronchi in Versilia
1962 Competition for the Monument to the Resistance in Cuneo
1964 Competition for the new Paganini theatre and Piazza della Pilotta in Parma
1964 Bridge for the Triennale in Milan
1965 Monumental fountain at Segrate
1966 Competition for the district of San Rocco in Monza
1967-74 Monte Amiata complex, Gallaratese Quarter, Milan, with Carlo Aymonino
1968 Design for the town hall in Scandicci
1971-84 Ossuary and the Cemetery of San Cataldo in Modena
1972 Design for City Hall Muggiò
1972 Primary school in Fagnano Olona
1973 Documentary movie "Ornament and crime" for the Triennale in Milan
1974 Design for the regional council headquarters and for a student residence in Trieste
1976 Design for a student residence in Chieti
1977 Design for a business centre in Florence
1977 Single-family homes in Mozzo
1978 Teatrino scientifico
1979 The floating 250 seat Teatro del Mondo and triumphal arch, both built for the Venice Biennale
1979 Apartments in Südliche Friedrichstadt for the exhibition IBA 84 in West Berlin, Germany
1979 Torri shopping centre in Parma
1979 Middle school in Broni, with Arduino Cantafora
1979 Monumental tower, Melbourne, Australia
1981-1988 Berlin Block on Kochstraße at its junction with Wilhelmstraße in Berlin, Germany
1982 Head Office of Fontivegge in Perugia
1982 House Pocono Pines, Mount Pocono in Pennsylvania, USA
1982 Isle of Elba cabins for Bruno Longoni
1983 Design for the town hall of Borgoricco
1984-1987 Casa Aurora, home of GFT Financial Textile Group, Turin
1984 Preparation for the Pitti-Uomo men's fashion event in Florence
1984-1991 Renovation of Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa
1985 Preparation of a trade exhibition stand for GFT Financial Textile Group, Turin
1985 Residential building in the Vialba quarter of Milan
1986-1989 Palace Hotel in Fukuoka, Japan
1986 South Villette in Paris, France
1987 Lighthouse Theatre, Toronto
1988-91 Hotel Duca di Milano, Milan
1988-90 Monument to Sandro Pertini, Milan
1989 de Lamel appartements, the Hague, Netherlands
1989 Urban plan for the greater urban area Pisorno, Tirrenia (Pisa)
1990-1992 Residential building and former industrial area, Città di Castello
1990-1993 Club House of the Cosmopolitan Golf Club in Tirrenia (Pisa)
1990 Social health complex in via Canova in Florence
1991 Administrative building for The Walt Disney Company in Orlando, Florida
1991 Contemporary arts centre on the island of Vassivière in Beaumont-du-Lac, France
1991 Redevelopment of former industrial cotton mill Cantoni in Castellanza as the main campus of the University Carlo Cattaneo
1991 Post office and apartments near the City of Music in Paris (19th arrondissement), France
1992 Reconstruction of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa with Ignazio Gardella
1993 Personal Florentine wardrobe for Bruno Longoni
1994-1998 Schützenstraße quarter, Berlin (photographs)
1995 Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Netherlands
1995 Regeneration of the former Kursaal area in Montecatini
1996 Complex for a magazine in Berlin, Germany
1996 Ca' di Cozzi central district in Verona
1996-1998 Mojiko Hotel, Kitakyushu, Japan
1997 Design for the Arts Factory district in Bologna
1997 Terranova shopping centre, Olbia, Sardinia
1999-2004 Refurbishment of Teatro La Fenice, Venice
2000 Riverside Building at the Walt Disney Studios, Burbank, California
2001 Scholastic Corporation Headquarters, New York City, USA
Product design
In addition to architecture, Rossi created product designs, including:
1982 The Conical coffee maker and kettle for Alessi
1983 Teatro chair for Molteni Group with the collaboration of Luca Meda;
1987 Milan chair for Molteni Group;
1988 La Cupola coffee maker for Alessi;
1988 Il Conico tea kettle for Alessi;
1989 Paris chair for Unifor now part of Molteni Group;
1989 Decartes bookshelf for Unifor now part of Molteni Group;
1989 Consiglio table for Unifor now part of Molteni Group;
1989 Moment clock for Alessi.
Publications
L'architettura della città (The Architecture of the City), Padua: Marsilio 1966.
Scritti scelti sull'architettura e la città: 1956-1972 (Selected Writings on architecture and the city: 1956-1972), edited by R. Bonicalzi, Milan: ULC, 1975.
Autobiografia scientifica (A scientific autobiography), Parma: Practices, 1990.
Gallery
References
Further reading
Savi, Vittorio, L'Architettura di Aldo Rossi, Franco Angeli Edizioni, Milan, 1975.
Pangalos, Panayotis, The significance of time in architecture of Aldo Rossi, ed. Gutenberg, Athens, 2012.
Moschini, Francesco, Aldo Rossi Progetti e disegni 1962-1979 (Aldo Rossi Plans and Drawings 1962-1979), Edizioni Center, Florence September 1979. International Co-editions Rizzoli New York, London Academy Edition, The Equerre Paris, Xarait Madrid.
Sherer, Daniel. ""Aldo Rossi: The Architecture and Art of the Analogous City," Curator's Essay for Exhibition held at Princeton School of Architecture on view from 5 February to 30 March 2018, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the death of Aldo Rossi.
Tafuri, Manfredo, Storia dell'architettura italiana 1944-1985 (History of Italian architecture 1944-1985), Einaudi, Torino, 1982.
Ferlenga, Alberto, Aldo Rossi. Opera completa (1993-1996) (Aldo Rossi. Complete Works (1993-1996)), Electa, 1996.
Leoni G(ed), Costruire sul costruito, intervista a Aldo Rossi(Building on the built - interview with Aldo Rossi), "Area" 32, May/June 1997, pp. 44–47
External links
Pritzker Prize web page on Rossi.
Bonnefanten Museum on Aldo Rossi
Find and Tell: Kurt Forster on Aldo Rossi, Canadian Centre for Architecture
Finding aid for the Aldo Rossi fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture
Aldo Rossi Foundation
Various designs of Aldo Rossi
The Architecture of the city, theatre of the world. The tragic dimension of the architecture of Aldo Rossi between rationality and pathos, Gina Oliva (in Italian)
"Body and architecture. Aldo Rossi and Bernard Tschumi", Michele Costanzo (in Italian)
Designs of Aldo Rossi in the Francesco Moschini collection of architecture and modern art
Aldo Rossi, L'imagination du scientifique et la rigueur du poète, Sabine Kraus, 2008 (in French)
Aldo Rossi papers at the Getty Research Institute
Italian designers
Postmodern architects
Pritzker Architecture Prize winners
Italian architecture writers
Italian male non-fiction writers
Urban theorists
Architectural theoreticians
Modernist architects from Italy
Architects from Milan
Polytechnic University of Milan alumni
1931 births
1997 deaths
Road incident deaths in Italy
20th-century Italian architects