ROSSI, Aldo

(1931- )

   Although most Post-Modern architecture is generally seen as overtly historical, sometimes Mannerist, and even playful or humorous, Aldo Rossi cultivated a more formal Post-Modern style that is reductive, rational, and formal. By reducing his buildings to their basic geometric components, Rossi is often said to have a Neo-Rationalist style and is compared to the Italian Rationalist architect Giuseppe Terragni. But Rossi's combination of shapes and materials is unexpected. Exemplifying this style is Rossi's New Town Hall, built in Borgoricco, outside Venice, Italy, in the 1980s. This is a rigidly symmetrical building, in which Rossi takes industrial materials and elements such as the exhaust chimney that rises up in front of the building, the metal roof, and the large, frameless windows, and then unifies them with the more enduring evocations of such classical structures as the Ancient Roman temple and basilica. It is the way that Rossi combines these elements, however, that is unique, and his buildings provoke a sense of mystery much like the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico.

   See also RATIONALISM.