Aldo Rossi - architect, writer, designer

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) achieved success as a theorist, writer, artist, teacher and architect not only in his native Italy but also abroad. Noted critic and historian Vincent Scully compared him to the painter-architect Le Corbusier. Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture critic and Pritzker Prize commissioner, described Rossi as "a poet who turned out to be an architect."

Biography

Rossi was born in Milan, Italy, where his father was a bicycle manufacturer. This business, he says, was founded by his grandfather. As an adult during World War II, Rossi received his early education on Lake Como and later in Lecco. Shortly after the end of the war, he entered the Politecnico di Milano, graduating in architecture in 1959. Rossi was the editor of the architectural magazine Casabella from 1955 to 1964.

Architectural projects

Although his early aspirations for film gradually shifted to architecture, he still retained a strong interestto drama. He himself said: "In all my architecture, I have always conveyed the charm of the theater." For the Venice Biennale in 1979, he designed the Teatro del Mondo, a floating theater built jointly by the theater and architectural commissions of the Biennale.

Rossi described the project as "the place where architecture ended and the world of imagination began." One of his last projects was the main building for Genoa, the Teatro Carlo Felice, which is the National Opera House. In Canada, Rossi's first project in the Western Hemisphere was completed in 1987 with the Lighthouse Theater in Toronto built on the shores of Lake Ontario.

In his book A Scientific Autobiography, he describes a car accident that happened in 1971 as a turning point in his life, the end of his youth and an inspirational project for a cemetery in Modena. While he was convalescing in the hospital, he began to think of cities as great camps of the living, and cemeteries as cities of the dead. Aldo Rossi's design for the San Cataldo cemetery won first prize in a competition in 1971.

Construction of residential buildings

Almost at the same time, Aldo Rossi's first residential complex was being built on the outskirts of Milan. Named Gallaratese (1969-1973), its structure is actually two buildings separated by a narrow gap. Of this project, Rossi said: "I think it is important, first of all, because of the simplicity of its design, which allows it to be repeated." Since then, he has developed a range of housing solutions, from bespoke toapartment buildings and hotels.

The Pocono Pines House in Pocono, Pennsylvania is one of his first completed buildings in the United States. In Galveston, Texas, a monumental arch for the city has been completed. In Coral Gables, Florida, the University of Miami commissioned Aldo Rossi to develop a new school of architecture.

Other housing projects include a residential building in the Berlin-Tiergarten area of West Germany and another project called "Sudlice Friedrichstadt" (1981 - 1988). There have been numerous residence projects in Italy. His hotel and restaurant complex Il Palazzo in Fukuoka, Japan, built in 1989, is another of his residential solutions.

Key Ideas

When the architect was introduced to Harvard for lectures, Architecture Department Chairman José Rafael Moneo said: “When future historians seek to explain why the destructive trends that threatened our cities have changed, his name will look like one of those who helped establish a wiser and more respectful attitude.”

Aldo Rossi advocated the use of a limited range of building types and cared about the context in which the building was built. This postmodern approach, known as neo-rationalism, represents a revival of austere classicism. In addition, he is known for his books, numerous drawings and paintings, furniture designs.

In 1966, the architect published L’architettura dellacittà ("Architecture of the city"), through which he quickly established himself as a leading international theorist. This is one of the best books by Aldo Rossi. In the text, he argued that over its history, architecture has developed certain continuous forms and ideas, to the point of being standard types of collective memory that transcend style and trends.

For him, the modern city is an "artifact" of these architectural constants. Instead of destroying this fabric with stunning new, individualistic architecture, he argued that architects should respect the context of the city and its architecture and use these common types. This position is called neo-rationalist because it updates the ideas of the Italian rationalist architects of the 20s and 30s, who also favored a limited range of building types. He was also sometimes classified simply as a postmodernist, as he rejected aspects of modernism and used the principles of historical styles.

The complex nature of Aldo Rossi's ideas meant that during the 60s and 70s he was more of a theorist and teacher than an architect of buildings. Indeed, for most of the 1970s and early 1980s, he taught at universities in the United States, including Yale and Cornell.

In the 80s and 90s, the architect Aldo Rossi continued his search for a timeless architectural language in buildings such as the Hotel il Palazzo (1987 - 1994) in Fukuoka (Japan) and the Bonnefanten Museum (1995) in Maastricht (Netherlands). Over time, his architectural sketches and drawingsbecame recognized as works in themselves, were shown in the largest museums in the world. The work of the architect Aldo Rossi is diverse. He was also a writer and worked as an industrial designer, especially for Alessi. Rossi received the Pritzker Prize in 1990.