Abella, Ma. Leobelle D.

3AR7

ALDO ROSSI Aldo Rossi (May 3, 1931- September 4, 1997), is one of the most influential architects during the period 1972- 1988, has accomplished the unusual feat of achieving international recognition in three distinct areas: theory, drawing and architecture. After receiving his architecture degree at the Politecnico di Milano (Polytechnic University in Milan) in 1959, Aldo Rossi served as a course assistant to prominent architects Ludovico Quaroni and Carla Amoynino. Aldo Rossi became a faculty member in the School of Architecture in Milan in 1965 and at the University of Venice in 1975. In addition to these regular appointments, his growing fame brought him positions as a professor in Zurich, Spain and United States. Aldo Rossis career as a theorist began to take shape during the years that he worked with Ernesto Rogers on the leading Italian architecture magazine Casabella Continuita (1955- 1964). In 1966, Aldo Rossi published the book "l'architettura della citt" (The Architecture Of The City), which subsequently was translated into several languages and enjoyed enormous international success. Spurning the then fashionable debates on style, Aldo Rossi instead criticized the lack of understanding of the city in current architectural practice. Aldo Rossi 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. Despite the modern movement polemics against monuments, for example, Aldo Rossi held that the city remembers its past and uses that memory through monuments; that is, monuments give structure to the city. This understanding of the city and its elements, its monuments, and its permanencies, informed Aldo Rossis own designs for public buildings. One of his earliest major public buildings was the addition to the existing cemetery of the city of Modena in northern Italy. Perceiving the cemetery as a repository of social meaning, Aldo Rossi conceived of it as a house for the dead, indeed, a city of the dead. The elemental architectonic forms, as in the elegant stereo metric volumes of the ossuary with its chamfered windows, reflect his ongoing investigations into building typology, that which remains beyond the particular and the concrete. The primary elements of architecture are repeated again and again in his work as Aldo Rossi engages in a determined search for essential forms based on what Aldo Rossi refers as repetition and fixation. Aldo Rossi attempts to recover the immovable elements of architecture, not as empty catalogues of forms but as a search for an ageless originality found in formal types. Understood in this fashion, architecture, Aldo Rossi claims helps make sense of the lived reality of the world. It

also provides the fixed scene of human events, which the architect historically has not been able to foresee. The most enduring architecture has been that which, in Aldo Rossis words, stopped short of the event. Aldo Rossi gave these ideas built form in the school at Fagnano Olona, for example, where the grand stepped podium leads to the gymnasium; and provides a place where class photographs can be taken, a school ritual in both Italy and the United States. Such rituals, says Aldo Rossi, give the comfort of continuity, repetition, compelling us to an oblique forgetfulness; the architecture should provide the backdrop against which they can be played out. In the project for the Carlo Felice Theater in Genoa, Aldo Rossis task was to replace the theatre that was bombed in World War II. His project leaves the old facade intact but accommodates full complex of new functions and spaces. The stereometric architectural forms convey an originality that at the same time transcends time and asserts a powerful presence in the urban fabric. Here and elsewhere, Aldo Rossi avoids historical and technological detailing in favour of preserving the integrity of the volumes, which then convey the quality of structures that have stood since antiquity. For Aldo Rossi, public buildings often become miniature versions of the city, particularly his schools and his Teatro del Mondo for the 1980 Venice Biennale. At Fagnano Olona, Aldo Rossi organized a series of elements (rotunda, cubic block, conical smokestack) around a central count and approached along linear elements such as a street, a bridge, or a wall axially aligned with the central elements, a disposition that recalls Italian city planning Such an organization also characterizes the school in Broni, where the library recalls historic models such as the anatomical theaters of Padua and Bologna. In turn, these types informed his Teatro del Mondo floating in the canals of Venice; like the city, the theater is also a stage, and simply miniaturizes the activity and organization of the city. In the same way, Aldo Rossi denies that Aldo Rossi creates the elements that regularly recur in his work; instead, Aldo Rossi discovers them in the city, especially the cities in Italy that Aldo Rossi knows and loves best; Milan, Mantua, and Venice. Even before the success that Aldo Rossi has enjoyed in the last decade with projects underway from Japan to Germany, Aldo Rossi achieved singular distinction for his drawings. Although one of his professors tried to discourage him from studying architecture on the grounds that Aldo Rossi drew as if Aldo Rossi were a rural builder, Aldo Rossi was not discouraged. Inspired by the urban landscapes of Italian painters Mario Sironi and Giorgio Morandi, Aldo Rossi produces haunting images in which his buildings and others in the city shrink, while everyday objects such as coffeepots and cigarette packs swell to fill the frame. The drawings conflate historical buildings, built and inbuilt projects by Aldo Rossi, mundane utensils, and shadowy figures occupying tiny cabins or yellow windows, and the same images, combined and reshuffled, reappear regularly, just as the cube and the cone reappear in his buildings.

The recurrence coffeepots in his increasingly well known drawings eventually induced the Italian firm Alessi to commission him to design a line of coffeepots and even, eventually, a watch that recalls those of his childhood schoolrooms. Although Aldo Rossis first projects, for a housing complex on the outskirts of Milan (Gallaratese 1969-1974), the San Cataldo cemetery in Modena (begun 1972), and Fagnano Olona School in Varese (1972-77), were contemporary with the publication of his most important theoretical works, only in the late 1970s and 1980s did his building work begin in earnest, and only in the last few years has his fame brought him a significant number of commissions in Italy. Two civic center projects in Italy indicate the range of his responses to a similar program. In Perugia, a large civic center (1988) with town hall, theater, and housing project, is elevated on a parking podium and mediates between the historic city and the post-war business center. The U-shaped Town Hall, with shops below and offices above, is bisected by a galleria raised high on slender piers. Adjoining the town hall but irregularly placed on the parking podium is the theater, with its freestanding conical entrance tower, and a long, slender housing block. The disposition suggests an accretion of disparate buildings over time rather than a complex planned for uniformity. Although here as elsewhere drawing on simple local types, Aldo Rossi also transforms them, as Aldo Rossi does with the public arcade that slices through the town hall. The town hall for the small village of Borgoricco demanded an altogether different response. Although Aldo Rossi adopted the U-shaped plan again, Aldo Rossi opens it up here with a south-facing courtyard framed on one end by copper clad, barrel-vaulted roofs that cascade down over the meeting room and the archives The simple elemental forms of the massive Perugia project give way here to a more complex massing and a greater play of materials, Each of the three principal views is articulated in markedly different ways, yet ordered and related by such elements us the narrow brick walls that rise through the full two stories. Two other major recent private commercial projects in Italy are worth noting. For the GFT fashion group in Turin, Aldo Rossi designed an office building on an Lshaped site with an angled corner entrance of smooth brick. Aldo Rossi repeats a motif from Borgoricco when Aldo Rossi anchors the entrance with giant double columns surmounted by a green steel I-beam lintel. By incorporating a smaller version of the double column I-beam lintel motif in the auditorium, Aldo Rossi emphasizes the parallel between public, urban scale and the theater as a smaller version of the city. Street elevations of the two lateral wings incorporate stone porticoes, a traditional urban element in the Piedmontese city, but Aldo Rossi also modulates the surface by extending the stone revetment up to the first floor and framing the stone piers with green steel I-beams. A regional shopping center outside Parma rises up out of the flat plains with 50-ft-high brick towers that both carry the name of the center and provide a setting for billboards and advertising.

A hotel complex in Fukuoka, Japan, an architecture school for the University of Miami, Florida, and a victory in a major competition for the Museum of Natural History in Berlin promise further opportunities to render the ideas Aldo Rossi explored in Architecture of the City in built form.

Major Works: Disney Development Company, Orlando-Celebration Villa bei Ronchi Ronchi (Versilia), 1960 Contemporary History Museum, Milan, 1962 Rekonstruktion Theater Paganini und Gestaltung der Piazza della Pilotta, Parma, 1964 Platz vor dem Rathaus mit Denkmal, Segrate, 1965 Wohnanlage San Rocco, Monza, 1966 Middle school, Triest, 1968-69 F. de Amicis elementary school, Broni, 1969-70 Gallaratese 2 Residential Complex, Milan, 1969-73 San Cataldo Cemetery, Modena, 1971, 1978-84 Elementary School in Fagnano Olona, Fagnano Olona, 1972-76 Pavillon in Borgo Ticino, Borgo Ticino, 1973 Single-Family Houses in Broni, Broni, 1973, 1982-83 El Corral Del Conde, Seville, 1975 Single-Family Houses in Mozzo, Mozzo, 1977-79 Middle school, Broni, 1979-83 Teatro del Mondo, Venice, 1979-80 Single-Family Houses in Zandobbio, Zandobbio, 1979 Cooperativa d'abitazione, Goito, 1979-83 Cooperativa d'abitazione, Pegognaga, 1979-82 Wohn- und Geschftshuser Sdliche Friedrichsstadt Block 10, Berlin-Kreuzberg, 198188

Funerary Chapel, Giussano, 1981-87 Centro direzionale e commerciale Fontivegge, Perugia, 1982-88 New Town Hall, Borgoricco, 1983-90 San Cristoforo Station, Milan, 1983-92 Stadtvilla an der Rauchstrae, Berlin-Tiergarten, 1983-85 Carlo Felice Theatre, Genoa, 1983, 1987-90 Aurora House, Turin, 1984-87 Centro Torri Department Store, Parma, 1985-88 Mehrzweck-Restaurierung, Este, 1985-93 Vialba residential complex, Milan, 1985-91 Mittelschule in Cantu, Cantu, 1986-93 Wohnanlage La Villette, Paris, 1986-91 School of Architecture, University of Miami, Miami, 1986-93 Gymnasium, Olginate, 1987-93 Hotel il Palazzo, Fukuoka, 1987-89 Lighthouse Theatre, Lake Ontario, 1987-89 Monumental Arch, Galveston, 1987-90 Hotel Duca di Milano, Milan, 1988-91 Palazzo dello Sport, Milan, 1988-94 The Hague Area Development, The Hague, 1988 Pisorno Area Development, Tirrenia, 1988-94 Center for Contemporary Art, Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise, 1988-91 Pocono Pines House, Mount Pocono, 1988-89 Centro Citta Commercial Area, Gifu, 1988-93 Via Croce Rossa Monument, Milan, 1988-90 GFT Comune di Settimo Torinese, Turin, 1988-93 Restaurant and Beer Hall, Sapporo, 1989-93

Ambiente Showroom, Tokyo, 1989-92 UNY Shopping Center, Nagoya, 1989-93 Asaba Design Studio, Tokyo, 1990-91 University of Castellanza, Castellanza, 1990-94 San Carlo alla Barona Church, Milan, 1990-93 Bonnefanten museum, Maastricht-Cramique terrein, 1990-94 Civic Center, Verbania, 1990-93 Canary Wharf Office Complex, London, 1990-93 Hotel Ocean, Chikura, 1990-91 Residential Complex, Citt di Castello, 1990-93 Lorenteggio Public Housing, Milan, 1990-93 Residential Complex, Bari, 1991-94 Palazzo del Cinema, Venice, 1991-94 Villa Alessi, Lago Maggiore, 1991-93 City Center, Kuala Lumpur, 1991-94 La Torre del Sole, Makuhari, 1991-94 Disney Office Complex in Disneyland, Orlando, 1991-94 Art Academy, New York City-Bronx, 1991-94 Linate Airport, Milan, 1991-94 Villa Alessi, Suna di Verbania, 1993-95 Quartier Schtzenstrae, Berlin-Mitte, 1995-97 Celebration - Disney World town, Orlando, 1995 Cirque de Soleil-Haus, Berlin-Mitte, 1997-2000 Umnutzung des Pirelli-Firmengelnde (Bicocca), Milan, 1999

Biography: 1949 - He enrolled at the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic University 1955 - He continued his studies in Prague and then in the Soviet Union, and took part in numerous cultural meetings 1955/64 - He worked on the editorial staff of 'Casabella - Continuit' (Cbc), summoned by Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909/1969) 1956 - He began work for Ignazio Gardella (1905-1999) and then for Marco Zanuso (1916) 1959 - He graduated in architecture 1959 - He joined the editorial staff of 'Il Contemporaneo' in Milan 1961 - He was invited to East Germany by Hans Schmidt(1893-1972), director of the Deutsche Bauakademie in Berlin 1963 - He became assistant to Ludovico Quaroni (1911-1987) at the School of Urban Studies in Arezzo and to Carlo Aymonino (1926) at the University Institute of Architecture in Venice(Iuav) 1965 - He became an appointed professor at the Milan Polytechnic University 1965 - His cultural relations with and journeys to Spain began, in particolar he worked with Salvatore Tarrag and the Catalan group 1966 - He published 'L'architettura della citt' 1970 - He won the competition for the chair of Building characteristics in Palermo 1970 - He became professor of Architectural Composition at the Milan Polytechnic University 1971 - The Ministry of Education suspended him from teaching in Italy due to his political and cultural activities in Universities, along with seven other members of the Board of the Faculty of Architecture in Milan 1971 - He began working with Gianni Braghieri 1971 - He travelled to Greece and Turkey with Braghieri 1972 - One-man exhibition in Zurich 1972/75 - He taught Architectural Design at the Federal Polytechnic University in Zurich 1973 - Director of the international section of Architecture at the Triennial in Milan 1973 - He shot the film 'Ornamento e Delitto' 1973 - One-man exhibition at the Polytechnic University in Lausanne 1975 - His right to teach in Italy was reinstated but he did not return to the Polytechnic University in Milan, but taught Architectural Composition at Iuav 1976 - He was the director of the International Seminary at Santiago de Compostela 1976 - He began teaching in the United States, initially at Cornell University in Ithaca and then at Cooper Union in New York. He held numerous lessons at major U.S. universities 1976 - One-man exhibition at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) in New York1978 - Study Seminar in Buenos Aires 1978 - Journey to Brazil 1978 - He began working with IAUS

1978 - Exhibitions of his architecture held in various cities in the United States 1979 - He was appointed an academician of San Luca 1980 - He was invited to Hong Kong and China 1980 - He was invited to Yale University as Professor of Architectural Design 1980 - Cycle of conferences in Latin America 1980 - He began his work as an industrial designer which would lead him to work with major companies like Alessi, Molteni and Unifor 1981 - First prize in the international IBA competition for his project for n. 10 Friedrichsrasse in Berlin 1981 - He published 'A Scientific Autobiography' 1982 - Design: 'Teatro' chair for Molteni 1983 - He was appointed director of the Architecture section of the Venice Biennale 1983 - He was professor at Harward 1984 - He was invited to Japan by universities and cultural institutions 1984 - Publication of 'Autobiografia Scientifica' in Spain 1984 - First prize in the competition for the Carlo Felice Theatre in Genoa 1984 - Design: 'La conica' coffee maker for Alessi 1986 - Exhibition 'Disegni di Architettura' at the Galleria Albertina in Turin 1986 - Exhibition at the Ministero de Vivienda in Madrid 1986 - He mounted the 'Hendrik Petrus Berlage' exhibition at Villa Farsetti, Venice Biennale 1986 - Design: 'Carteggio' cabinet for Molteni 1987 - One-man exhibition at the Architecture House in Moscow (the first exhibition dedicated to an Italian architect) 1987 - First prize in the international competition for Villette south of Paris 1987 - Design: 'Milano' chair for Molteni 1988 - Anthological exhibitin organized by the Italian and British governments at the York City Museum and at RIBA in London 1988 - First prize in the international competition for the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin 1988 - He was invited to the international workshop 'Napoli sotterranea' 1988 - He was appointed coordinating designer for the project for the refurbishment of the areas belonging to the Italian state railways in the areas of Trieste and Udine 1988 - Conference in Germany held on the occasion of the presentation of his project for the Museum of Berlin 1988 - Design: 'La cupola' coffee maker for Alessi 1989 - He received the mandate to design the Teatro de Las Indias da from the Junta de Andalucia in Seville 1989 - Design: 'Parigi' armchair for Unifor 1990 - He won the Pritzker Prize 1991 - He won the Aia Honor Award 1991 - He was awarded the City of Fukuoka prize for the best architecture with 'Il Palazzo' hotel complex

1991 - Exhibition on his work at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and at the Berlage Stock Exchange in Amsterdam 1991 - Design: 'Providence' sofa and 'Nomandie' buffet for Molteni 1992 - Winner of the '1991 Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture' and of the architecture prize 'Campione d'Italia nel mondo' 1993 - Full exhibition of his work at the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin and at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Ghent in Belgium 1994 - He was invited to take part in the competitions for the rebuilding of the Souks in Beirut and for the construction of a new control tower at Stockholm Airport 1996 - He was appointed honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (AAAL) in New York 1997 - He received the 1996 special prize for culture 1996 for the 'Architecture and Design' sector awarded by the Italian Prime Minister's prizes and culture commission 1997, 4th September - He died in Milan following a road accident

Works 1964 - Iron bridge and layout of the park for the 13th Triennial, Milan (with Meda; constructed and demolished) 1965 - Layout of the Piazza del Municipio and Partisan Memorial, Segrate (constructed) 1969/70 - Housing unit at the Gallaratese 2 residential district, Milan (constructed) 1971/78 - San Cataldo Cemetery, Modena (with Braghieri, 1st prize) 1972 - Primary school, Fagnano Olona (constructed) 1979 - Middle school, Broni (constructed) 1979 - Teatro del Mondo, Venice (constructed and demolished) 1981 - Invited competition for Sdliche Friedrichstadt, Kochstrasse/Friedrichstrasse, IBA 84, Berlin (with Braghieri, Stead, Johnson, 1st prize) 1983 - House on Rauchstrasse, Berlin-Tiergarten (with Braghieri, Stead; constructed) 1983 - Project for the rebuilding of the Carlo Felice Theatre, Genoa (with Gardella, Reinhart, Sibilla; constructed) 1984 - GFT 'Casa Aurora' office building, Turin (with Braghieri, Uva, Marchesotti, Scheurer, Ciocca, Oks; constructed) 1986/92 - Houses for the Villette sud area, Paris (with Zber, Heut; constructed) 1987/89 - 'Il Palazzo' Hotel and restaurant complex, Fukuoka, Japan (with Adjmi, Horiguchi, Uchida; constructed) 1988 - Contemporary Art Centre, Vassivire, France (constructed) 1988/90 - Pertini Memorial, Milan (with Fera, Adjmi; constructed) 1990 - Project for the new Portello conference centre, Milan (with Scheurer, Trazzi; constructed) 1990/94 - New building for the Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Holland (with

Barbieri, da Pozzo, Kocher; constructed) 1991 - Competition project for a building in Friedrichstrasse, Berlin (with Kocher) 1991/93 - Extension of the Milano-Linate International Airport, Milan (with Brandolisio, da Pozzo, Kocher, Vercelloni; constructed) 1992/98 - Galicia Museum of the Sea, Vigo, Spain (with Portela, Brandolisio; constructed) Residential and office building in Schtzenstrasse, Berlin (with Scheurer, Kocher; constructed) 1993 - Technological Park, Fondo Toce (with da Pozzo, Tadini, executive project: Guerzani; constructed) 1995 - Office and shop building in Leipzigerplatz/Leipzigerstrasse, Berlin (with da Pozzo, Scheurer, Tadini, Kocher, Brandolisio; constructed)

References:
http://architect.architecture.sk/aldo-rossi-architect/aldo-rossi-architect.php http://kotonogo.blogspot.com/2011/05/aldo-rossi.html http://www.designboom.com/eng/exhibition/rossi1.html http://eng.archinform.net/arch/125.htm http://adamonulov.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/formal_strategies_20091.pdf http://mimoa.eu/projects/Italy/Modena/San%20Cataldo%20Cemetery http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/italy/genoa/opera/rossi.html http://www.architetturadelmoderno.it/scheda_nodo.php?id=475&lang=_eng