Aldo Rossi

Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) was born in Milan, where he graduated in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. In 1970 he began teaching at several American universities, including Harvard and Yale. He held a number of prestigious positions, including director of the architecture section of the Venice Biennale in 1983, while dividing his architecture practice between public and private construction. To mention just a few of his projects, the residential building in the Gallaratese district of Milan, the Cemetery of San Cataldo in Modena, the renovation of the Teatro Carlo Felice opera house in Genoa, the city block between Kochstrasse and Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, the reconstruction of Teatro La Fenice opera house in Venice, and the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. Architect and theorist, named Accademico di San Luca in 1979, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize 1990 and the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture in 1991, Aldo Rossi is also famous for his work as a designer—collaborating with Alessi, Artemide, Longoni, Molteni and UniFor—and as a painter and graphic artist, two fields closely tied to his design work.