A retrospective on the extraordinary theoretical and practical contribution of an “unusual architect”: "Aldo Rossi. The architect and the cities", an extraordinary exhibition, on Rossi's career that was cut short when he died following a car accident in 1997 at the age of 66 years old. The exhibition will open on December 17 at MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.

This retrospective exhibition on the Italian architect presents  materials a selection over 800 drawings, sketches, notes, letters, photographs, models and documents taken from MAXXI Architettura, Fondazione Aldo Rossi's collections archives, and collections from all over the world.
"Taking place more than 20 years after his death and since the last major monographic exhibition in Milan, this important retrospective on Aldo Rossi offers an opportunity to not only gather extraordinary materials, spread across numerous archives and private collections around the world but also to reflect on the specific features characteristic to Italian architecture from the second half of the twentieth century."

After the exhibition dedicated to Gio Ponti, Aldo Rossi is the focus of a major retrospective at MAXXI that analyses the extraordinary theoretical and his practical contribution in the reconstruction of Berlin and the debate about Barcelona. He places his studies within a broader tradition of national analytical culture and in relation to the most pressing issues of urban contemporary life.

Highlights of the exhibition include cultural projects, architectural projects, domestic set-ups and projects, as the three main drivers of a complex, multifaceted history involving training, research and education,

over 40 models along that pay attention to two of Rossi’s most significant works in his native Italy, Venice’s Theatre of the World and the San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena, broughting to life in a gallery setting with original materials and photography by Antonio Martinelli, Luigi Ghirri, and Stefano Topuntoli.

Other projects on display are Italian theatres Carlo Felice in Genova, Berlin's Schützenstrasse and the Disney Headquarters in Orlando. The exhibition finishes featuring the iconic Piroscafo bookshelf, which was designed by Rossi with Luca Meda for Molteni&C, which is serving as the show’s sponsor.

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Alberto Ferlenga.
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Venue / Adress
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Gallery 2. MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo - Via Guido Reni 4A - 00196 Rome. Italy.
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From 10 March 2021 to 17 October 2021.
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Aldo Rossi (born May 3, 1931, Milan, Italy—died September 4, 1997, Milan) was an Italian architect who achieved international recognition in four distinct areas: architectural theory, drawing and design and also product design. He was one of the leading exponents of the postmodern movement. He went to the school of architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan. His thesis advisor was Piero Portaluppi and he graduated in 1959.

From 1959 was one of the editors of, the architectural magazine Casabella-Continuità, with editor in chief Ernesto Nathan Rogers. His early articles cover architects such as Alessandro Antonelli, Mario Ridolfi, Auguste Perret and Emil Kaufmann and much of this material became part of his second book, Scritti scelti sull'architettura e la città 1956-1972 (Selected writings on architecture and the city from 1956 to 1972). He married the Swiss actress Sonia Gessner, who introduced him to the world of film and theater. Culture and his family became central to his life. His son Fausto was active in movie-making both in front of and behind the camera. His daughter Vera was involved with theatre.

During the early 1960s he began his lifelong career as a teacher, working for a time at the Polytechnic of Milan and the Istituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice (IUAV).In 1966 Rossi published his seminal publication L’architettura della città (The Architecture of the City)

Among Rossi’s first works to be built was his winning competition design (with Gianni Braghieri) for the Cemetery of San Cataldo (1971–84) in Modena, Italy. Rossi’s design for the sanctuary of the cemetery, a heavy cube standing on square pillars with raw square windows carved out in symmetrical layers, stripped architecture down to its essence. While in some ways reminiscent of Greek and Renaissance models, it had a severity and total lack of ornamentation.

Rossi’s Gallaratese housing scheme (1969–73) in Milan is an enormous concrete structure built to house 2,400 people. Its design, like that of the cemetery, utilized simple primary forms and repetitive elements in the facade. The structure’s uniformity and timelessness again made it fit within, rather than detract from, the urban fabric. Rossi gained international attention at the Venice Biennale in 1979 when he designed the Teatro del Mondo, a floating theatre. The wood-clad structure, featuring an octagonal tower, recalled the Venetian tradition of floating theatres and, Rossi believed, tapped into the collective architectural memory of the city.

Rossi’s A Scientific Autobiography was published in 1981 (reissued 2010). In the 1980s and ’90s Rossi continued his search for a timeless architectural language in commissions such as the Hotel il Palazzo (1987–94) in Fukuoka, Japan, and the Bonnefanten Museum (1995) in Maastricht, Netherlands. Over time, his architectural sketches and drawings became recognized as works in themselves and were shown in major museums throughout the world. In addition to being an architect and writer, he worked as an industrial designer, notably for Alessi. In 1990 Rossi received the Pritzker Prize.
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