Aldo Rossi Books

Available again, a lyrical memoir by one of the major figures of postmodernist architecture; with drawings of architectural projects prepared especially for the book.

This architectural monograph provides a critical study of Aldo Rossi, a leading Italian architect and one of the most successful architects of the post-modernist period. An historical analysis of Rossi's work is presented as the author explores the source material, and projects and buildings of the period 1965-1992 are examined. The book is illustrated throughout and includes a reappraisal of nine recent projects.

Aldo Rossi was a practicing architect and leader of the Italian architectural movement La Tendenza and one of the most influential theorists of the twentieth century. The Architecture of the City is his major work of architectural and urban theory. In part a protest against functionalism and the Modern Movement, in part an attempt to restore the craft of architecture to its position as the only valid object of architectural study, and in part an analysis of the rules and forms of the city's construction, the book has become immensely popular among architects and design students.

Der Klassiker Die Architektur der Stadt von Aldo Rossi wieder erhältlich

Der Mailänder Architekt und Architekturtheoretiker Aldo Rossi (1931–1997) war eine charismatische Persönlichkeit und prägte durch seine Lehrtätigkeit an der ETH Zürich in den 1970er-Jahren eine ganze Generation von Architekten. Seine als Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiografie betitelte Autobiografie orientiert sich an der Architektur und an den für ihn bedeutsamen Künstlern und Orten. Ein wichtiger Bezugspunkt war dabei Max Plancks Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie. Nun ist Rossis einflussreiches Buch endlich wieder auf Deutsch erhältlich. Die Neuausgabe enthält unveröffentlichte Farbzeichnungen Rossis, die sein Schaffen eindrucksvoll illustrieren.

The Italian architect Aldo Rossi (1931–1997), a recipient of the renowned Pritzker Prize, is one of the best-known modern architects. The exhibition at the Museum of Architectural Drawing, organised in collaboration with the Fondazione Aldo Rossi in Milan, presents over 110 works on paper by Rossi, some of which are being shown publicly for the first time. An introduction to Rossi’s drawings is provided by the series Corpus Mediolanensis, consisting of coloured and reworked single-print graphic works, which afford an overview of 30 years of the architect’s design work. Of special significance in Rossi’s work is Insula, a series of drawings inspired by models from antiquity and their reinterpretation in the works of Baroque artists such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) and Claude Lorrain (1600–1682). In complete contrast to the zeitgeist of the 1970s, which animated architects and artists with the hope of creating a better architecture or even a better society by breaking with the past, Rossi found his models in the buildings of earlier centuries. The title of the exhibition refers not only to this series, but also to the traditional construction method of Roman buildings (insulae), an important concept for Rossi’s architecture as, for example, in projects such as Schützenstraße in Berlin. The German capital as well as his native Italy played a major role in the architect’s career. Rossi designed unique projects for Berlin, some of which were realised while others, such as the German Historical Museum, remained on paper.