Aldo Rossi

Aldo Rossi , 1931-97, Italian architectb. Milan; grad. Milan Polytechnic (1959). He began working for the design magazine Casabella-Continuità in 1954 and became its editor a decade later. His book The Architecture of the City (1966, tr. 1982) is a classic of modern architectural theory. Rossi is noted for the timeless quality of his designs. and his buildings, which are largely reduced to their geometrical essentials, skillfully exploit the lively interplay of light and shadow. His best-known projects include the cemetery of San Cataldo, Modena (begun 1971); a floating theater at the 1980 Venice Biennale; the Palazzo Hotel, Fukuoka, Japan (1989); the Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, the Netherlands (1994); and the Disney Development Corp., Celebration, Fla. (1995). Rossi also designed furniture and household items and taught at the Architecture Institute in Venice and several American universities. He was awarded the 1990 Pritzker Prize .

Bibliography: See his A Scientific Autobiography (1981); A. Ferlenga, ed., Aldo Rossi: The Life and Works of an Architect (2001).

Rossi, Aldo (1931–97). Italian architect, the most eminent protagonist of Rational architecture (also called Neo-Rationalism or Tendenza), the theoretical bases of which he set out in L'architettura della città (Architecture of the City—1966) in direct contradiction of the tenets of the Modern Movement: it was an important stimulus for the evolution of New Urbanism. Yet in the early 1960s his work had seemed to embrace aspects of International Modernism, late-C18 Neo-Classicism of the stereometrically pure type advocated by Boullée, and a proto-Surrealism reminiscent of the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978). Something of the Surreal atmosphere in Chirico's work could be found in Rossi's apartment-blocks for Aymonino's Gallaretese 2 Complex, Monte Amiata, Milan (1969–74). With Gianni Braghieri (1945– ) he designed the San Cataldo Cemetery, Modena (1971–6 and 1980–8), a master-work of stripped Neo-Classical geometry as severe as any late-C18 or C20 essay, which became a paradigm of Neo-Rationalist architecture. Other important works include the School at Fagnano di Olona (1972–6), apartments in the Rauchstrasse, Berlin (1983), housing blocks for the Internationale Bauaustellung (International Building Exhibition) Berlin (1984–7), the School of Architecture, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL. (1986), the Il Palazzo Hotel, Fukuoka, Japan (1987–9—with Morris Adjmi (1959– ) ), the Carlo Felice New Theatre, Genoa (1983–93—with Gardella), and the Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, The Netherlands (1990–4). His A Scientific Autobiography (1982) and Selected Writings and Projects (1983) set out many of his ideas regarding building typologies and urban morphologies.

Bibliography

Adjmi (ed.) (1991);
Amsoneit (1994);
Ar&Bi (1985);
Brandolisio (ed.) (1999);
Kalman (1994);
Ferlenga (ed.) (1987, 1992);
Geisert (ed.) (1994);
Jodidio (1996a);
Klotz (1988);
Moschini (ed.) (1979);
The Times (18 Sept. 1997), 25;
Portoghesi et al. (2000);
A. Rossi (1982, 1994, 1996);
A. Rossi (ed.) (1967);
A. Rossi et al. (1973);
Savi (1976);
Jane Turner (1996)

Analogical architecture. Aldo Rossi's term for his own architecture in Italy in the 1970s, in which he saw analogies with historical buildings, vernacular architecture, etc.

Bibliography

Ferlenga (1987)