Aldo Rossi. A dialogue between design, architecture and memory
Classicism, irony, metaphysics: Aldo Rossi's creative talent is a perpetual quest across levels that mutually mix and influence one another: the architectural and urban dimensions, monumental objectivity and design. Together, they all shape a domestic landscape designed on primary forms and simple geometries, and which, like the urban context, develops from processes based on the interplay of proportions and memory cues. "A poet who happens to be an architect," the critic and architect Ada Louise Huxtable said of him, and one might add, of his design.
Design, which for Rossi draws heavily on architectural forms: houses, roofs, domes and façades become compositional elements of furniture and objects. The Cabina dell'Elba, produced by the Bruno Longoni furniture atelier, is the archetype of furniture that becomes domestic, theatrical and melancholic architecture. With its distinctive volumes and nostalgic colors with vertical stripes, it preserves the essence of beautiful past times.
The Cabina dell'Elba was born from past memories: quick sketches on paper capture in a few strokes the recollections of a walk among the beach cabins on the island of Elba. From those simple, rapid strokes comes the rediscovery of these small structures that are the synthesis and archetype of a home, that with their simplicity and geometry become a distinctive, characteristic element of a place, of an emotion, of an identity. The Bruno Longoni furniture atelier has been producing the walk-in wardrobe designed by Aldo Rossi since 1982, giving form and function to his idea, modelling its pure architecture with craftsmanship.
The Fiorentino furniture series, handcrafted again by the Bruno Longoni furniture atelier, has a fine checkered inlay but above all a monumental presence, creating an architectural space that draws on past recollections. The wood has the melancholic charm of the homes of the past and all the expressive power of a noble raw material.
Not only the furniture, but also the objects, prototypes, drawings, paintings, models and studies produced by the architect and designer from 1960 to 1997 are collected in the exhibition «Aldo Rossi. Design 1960-1997», by Chiara Spangaro in collaboration with the Fondazione Aldo Rossi and Silvana Editoriale, hosted at the Museo del Novecento in Milan from April 2022. A diversified journey into the universe of one of the greatest protagonists of the 20th century visual culture, where all of his poetics and passion for design emerge.
Translating architectural models within the walls of a home: this is the starting point for the iconic Piroscafo bookcase designed with Luca Meda for Molteni&C: a large domestic architecture that traces the façade of the Fontivegge Business Centre in Perugia, again designed by Rossi, with its regular grid of "windows" that mark the rhythm and dynamism of the furniture.
Graphic works, industrial products and pieces of craftsmanship that continuously and playfully bring together architecture and design, landscapes and objects. As in the sketches of the La Conica coffee maker, designed for Alessi in 1984, which returns with many different illustrations, as a tower or building, and becomes the starting point for Rossi's design idea for "a table architecture".
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