ALDO ROSSI

Aldo Rossi  was an Italian  architect and designer who accomplished the unusual feat of achieving international recognition in four distinct areas: theory, drawing, architecture and product design.

Rossi was born in Milan, Italy on May 3, 1931. In 1949 he started studying architecture at the Politecnico di Milano where he graduated in 1959. Already in 1955 he started writing for the Casabella , an architectural magazine, where he became editor between 1959–1964.

Aldo Rossi died in a car accident on September 4, 1997 in Milan.

THEORY

Rossi’s design theory evolved from a wide range of influences: from architect and theorist Adolf Loos, to early Italian modernism, to surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico.

His book, L’architettura della città (The Architecture of the City), is to this day considered a pioneering work in urban theory.  The book argues that architects should be sensitive to urban/cultural context, making use of historical design precedent rather than trying to reinvent typologies. Rossi held that the city remembers its past through monuments. This position is called neorationalist, since it updates the ideas of the Italian rationalist architects of the 1920s and ’30s, who also favored a limited range of building types.

In his book, A Scientific Autobiography, he describes an auto accident that occurred in 1971 as being a turning point in his life, ending his youth, and inspiring a project for the San Cataldo Cemetery at Modena. It was while he was recuperating in a hospital that he began thinking of cities as great encampments of the living, and cemeteries as cities of the dead.

.

PRODUCT DESIGN

In the 1980s Rossi designed stainless steel cafetieres(coffee press)and other products for Alessi, Pirelli and others.

Aldo Rossi La Cupola Espresso Maker 1988, produced by Alessi

Stainless steel kettle Il Conico, 1986

EXHIBITS

For the Venice Biennale in 1979 Rossi designed a floating Teatro del Mondo[3] that seated 250 people.

For the Venice Biennale in 1984, he designed a triumphal arch at the entrance to the exhibition site.

ARCHITECTURE

SAN CATALDO CEMETERY

Located in Modena,Italy The building was built in 1971 He fused ideas from the Costa and Jewish cemeteries of the 19th

century to design his cemetery for a competition with Gianni Braghieri in 1972, winning the competition.

Rossi took fragments of formal composition found within these cemeteries and transformed or reduced specific elements to represent them in his own plan.

Rossi uses a bounding wall to define an axis and break down the rectangle into a series of zones.

The Rossian cemetery has no roof, floors, windows or doors; instead it is only a shell with openings. Some of the openings are for light, others for views, access, and even containment of cremated bodies.

Many do not hold this building in high esteem, as they find it depressing or ugly. But Rossi has found a way to make architecture metaphysical; the visitor is inevitably confronted with the thought of death, where truths are constant and irrevocable.

TEATRO CARLO FELICE

The Teatro Carlo Felice is the principal opera house of Genoa, Italy, used for performances of opera, ballet, orchestral music, andrecitals. It is located on the Piazza De Ferrari.

the first stone of the building was laid on 19 March 1826. The inaugural performance of Bellini's Bianca e Fernando took place on

April 7, 1828, even though the structure and decoration were not quite finished.

It was damaged during the Second World War by  incendiary bombs and an attack by British Warships. Additional damage was caused by looters

Reconstruction plans began immediately after the war's close. The first design by Paolo Antonio Chessa (1951) was rejected; the second byCarlo Scarpa was approved in 1977 but brought to a halt by his untimely death. 

Aldo Rossi ultimately provided today's design, in which portions of the original facade have been recreated but the interior is entirely modern. The hall officially reopened in June 1991, with a main hall holding up to 2,000 seats and a smaller auditorium holding up to 200 seats.

BONNEFANTEN MUSEUM

The museum was founded in 1884 as the historical and archaeological museum of the Dutch province of Limburg.

The name Bonnefanten Museum is derived from the French 'bons enfants' ('good children'), the popular name of a former convent that housed the museum from 1951 until 1978.

In 1995, the museum moved to its present location, a former industrial site named 'Céramique'. The new building was designed by the Italian architect Aldo Rossi. With its rocket-shaped cupola overlooking the river Maas, it is one of Maastricht's most prominent modern buildings.[1]

Since 1999, the museum has become exclusively an art museum. The historical and archaeological collections were housed elsewhere. The museum is largely funded by the province of Limburg.

MOJIKO HOTEL

Built from 1996-1998 The Story that Rossi wanted to tell was based on the idea of transition The architectural ensemble-consisting of an eight- storey brick wing

and a six- storey stone-clad cube resting on a wide balustrade base – marks the transition between land and sea, creating a pivotal point of reference between the railway station and a ferry dock that connects the island of Moji with the Japanese Mainland

QUARTIER SCHÜTZENSTRASSE

Quartier Schützenstrasse consists of a classical Friedrichstadt block defined by the Schützenstrasse, Markgrafenstrasse, Zimmerstrasse, and Charlottenstrasse.

Aldo Rossi used the historical urban structure of the division of land into small plots as his concept. The individualized houses signal individual plots but the total number of facades exceeds the number of houses standing independently of each other. While two of the buildings are reserved exclusively for residential apartments the rest provide for a mixture of residential and commercial use.

It  is a collage of icons and archetypes with several obvious references to other Rossi buildings as well as historical references, for example, Schützenstrasse 8 is a copy of the courtyard facade of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, built in 1516 by Antonio Sangallo, that was modified by Michelangelo. The court yard facade copies three of the centre line of windows of the Palazzo Farnese.

The plan, inspired by the building blocks of 19th century Berlin, is organized around two large and two small interior courtyards that fill the block with light.

The intense colorfulness, inspired by the colors of antique architecture, tie the block together and draws attention to the allotment structure, which distinguishes the individual houses. Rossi used particular colors for particular facade materials; the more "artificial" the material, the more "vivid" the color.

MONTE AMIATA COMPLEX 

Located in the city of Milan, the Gallaratese II housing complex has the capacity to house 2400 inhabitants.

Aldo Rossi designed the complex at the 'Gallaratese Quarter II' to be a self-contained village which was even dubbed a 'Palais social' by its tenants.

Built between 1953 and 1955 Rossi's building, by contrast, is entirely repetitive and white

SUDLICHE FRIEDRICHSTADT HOUSING COMPLEX

It is located Berlin, GermanyBuilt in 1981 

HOTEL IL PALAZZO

• Built in 1987 in Japan• Built in Post-Modern

style in an urban context

• Comprises mainly of brick masonry with expressed steel lintels

• Reinterpretation of classical orders again with cornices and recessed windows.

• Flat roof, Squarish plan and red in color

CASA AURORA• Use of corner

columns and design of entrance from within.

• Blank façade at entrance

• Red façade-exposed brick

• Use of various geometries in the same complex

• Octagon block (Teatro del Mondo)

• Portico (Casa Aurora)• Tower (San Catalado)• Triangular skylights

(Berlin Housing)• Square design with

recessions (Centro Torri Centre)

CA DI COZZI

Located in Verona,Italy Project year:1996 This was his last architectural project. The whole area measures 67,00 mc. He was asked to create a  district with shops, offices and apartments.  This project has been based on three main elements: the green open

space of the hills,  the hierarchy among residences and offices, and finally the reference to,  not the copying of, Venetian Architecture.

The idea is that the entire district is constructed with local materials.  Semi circular and triangular roof top Use of cornices and columned portico Recessed windows

AWARDS The Pritzker Architecture Prize,1990 1991 Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture Campione d‘Italia Nel Mondo Prize. 1996 Cultural prize for the architecture and design sector.

REFERENCES

Wikipedia ArchDaily www.archinomy.com/case-studies/1922

/aldo-rossi