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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aldo Rossi | 2/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Rossi | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:40:08.375461+00:00 | kb-cron |
== 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. The work was representative of Rossi's repetitive postmodernist design, but was also representative of a common objection to Rossi's work: that it focused too much on "monumental collectivity" over individualism. 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 artifacts 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.