Aldo Rossi. insulae

About

In addition to his architecture, it is above all the colourful, lively drawings that bear Rossi's unmistakable signature with their geometric shapes and antique models. The exhibition at the Museum of Architectural Drawings in collaboration with the Fondazione Aldo Rossi in Milan presents over 110 works by the architect, most of which are being shown to the public for the first time.

The title of the exhibition Insulae (Islands) refers on the one hand to one of the series of drawings presented and on the other hand to the term isolato (isolated) in relation to the single location chosen for most of Rossi's projects, such as the Schützenstrasse district.

The Corpus Mediolanensis series, consisting of colored and processed screen prints by Rossi as individual prints, provides an introduction to the graphic work , providing an overview of the architect and designer's 30 years of design work.

A special role in Rossi's work is played by Insula , a series of drawings inspired by ancient models and their reinterpretation in the works of Baroque artists such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi or Claude Lorrain. In complete contrast to the spirit of the 1970s, in which architects and artists hoped to create better architecture or even a better society by breaking with the past, Rossi found his role models in the buildings of earlier centuries. On the basis of these models, he developed his own architectural language with very characteristic geometric shapes that have been found in architecture since antiquity, such as triangles or cylinders, and which are reinterpreted by Rossi.

In addition to his native Italy, Berlin also played an important role for the architect: he designed unique projects for the German capital, some of which were realised, others, such as the project for the German Historical Museum, remained only on paper.