Aldo Rossi and The Architecture of the City

Aldo Rossi The Architecture of the City

“The Architecture of the City”
First published as L’architettura della citta in 1966
Proposes a return to reason & logic, history & memory, & the city
The city must be valued as a construction over time

Themes
Critique of Functionalism and Modernism’s utilitarian basis
Autonomous monuments and the permanence of form
A city of fragments, a city of monuments
The memory structure of the city

Permanence of Form

Palazzo della Ragione Padua, Italy
A City Hall from the 1200’s, converted into a marketplace
Form is permanent and complex
Form can be adapted to new uses
Not “form follows function”

Project for the Coliseum Rome, Italy
Project to transform the Coliseum into a forum for a centrally planned church
Proposed by Carlo Fontana, 1707
Unrealized
Maintains the idea that existing artifacts can be adapted for new uses
“ Whereas the Functionalist seeks the greatest possible suitability to the most specific purpose, the Rationalist desires to obtain the greatest potential of adaptation to the largest number of needs”

Type and Elemental Forms

Teatro del Mondo Venice Biennale 1979-80
“ Theatre of the World”
Simple, unornamented forms
Recalls floating theatres characteristic of Venice in the 18th century
Based on Rossi’s childhood memory of a puppet theatre

Type and Memory
Reminiscent of
De Chirico
The city composed of recognizable types
Types allow people to connect through collective memory
Autonomous forms as archetypes
Form follows memory

Fagnano Olona Primary School, Italy 1972-76

A “little city”
The idea of theatre in the central space
Large stair sets up view with class portrait in mind
Rossi alludes to the time of childhood, as a memory

Time
The presence of clocks indicates an event is over
Roland Barthes saw this fixation in photography
Like De Chirico’s paintings, Rossi’s architecture possesses a haunting, melancholy quality

San Cataldo Cemetery Modena, Italy 1971

Rossi won the competition for the project of extending the existing cemetery
A city for the dead
Strips detail
Unbound by the constraints of time
Here he subverts the corridor “type” to reflect on the silence and loneliness of death
Ossuary building’s absence of windows marks the absence of inhabitants

Memory Structure of the City
Nolli Map of Rome, 1748
The city designed as links from one monument to the next
Mimics how our memories work
Monuments and memory are fundamental to the city structure

Conclusion
The city and its architecture are inseparable
Permanence of form
Type and elemental forms
Type and memory
Time
Memory structure of the city

“ The architect masters meaning and, through it, he is able to enter into the process of society’s transformation”

Aldo Rossi and The Architecture of the City

by hollan12

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

3 Embeds 11

Statistics

Aldo Rossi and The Architecture of the City Presentation Transcript

http://www.slideshare.net	9
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	1
http://www.docseek.net	1