Aldo Rossi. Soundings. Series of Theory and Architectural Openness

Aldo Rossi (Milan 1931-1997) was a brilliant but self-contradictory master in architecture of the late Twentieth Century, and the first Italian to be awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1990. His work has left us a legacy of books, projects and significant works realized on three continents. His books The Architecture of the City (1966), A Scientific Autobiography (1989) and The Complete Works (1989 to 1996) are studied and read all over the world. His work is characterized by a rigorous epistemological structure, but also and especially, by the magic and wonder of a reality in which architectural projects located the foundations for any future development in their roots and in the "already-been". With identical rigour, for Aldo Rossi, architectural design and the images produced by it acquired the substance of a personal language to reflect on existential and symbolic questions that could not be described nor articulated in words. Through his faith in theory, images and constructed works, Rossi showed us a way to critically approach the contradictions of our time.