Aldo Rossi (first architect employer)

RIBA Part I in hand, Elizabeth Randall, Robin Crane and I headed July 1979 for Milan. To Aldo Rossi I had sent slides of my project drawings and he agreed to receive me, then offered me what I wanted : to work for him.

As agreed, my collaboration with Studio di Architettura would begin that Autumn, with an unpaid 2-month trial period, later extended till Christmas. I hoped to spend the entire “year out” between Part I (BA) and Part II (MA) courses in Milan.

Within a week of starting enquiries were made by Rossi’s associate Gianni Braghieri, as to my plans beyond the trial period. I needed to earn to cover my living costs, and told him so. I found myself rapidly and discreetly ‘hired’, on a permanent basis from January 1980, staying for over two years.

I thus became the first paid ’employee’ of Studio di Architettura, and would witness within less than a decade its transformation from artist’s bottega (former collaborators were usually given original signed graphic works to thank them for their efforts) into an ‘international brand’ outfit, with associate offices in Japan, Holland and the USA.

During this period I had much encouragement from two of AR’s closest architect friends, Luca Meda and Fabio Reinhart, and also enjoyed the dubious privilege of crossing paths with a number of the architectural press’ star divas. The slippery slope of CPD (Continuous Professional Decline) had already kicked in…

Answering the ‘phone during the partner’s absence was one of my duties. Fellini, di Roma, I once jotted down, to Aldo’s genuine astonishment. (I think he thought that it may have been my umore inglese.) He did of course admire his films, and was intensely pleased when I spotted, in the coloured sketches that he had made that summer for Teatro del Mondo, a playful Fellini touch of allegria.

Il Teatro del Mondo, whose presentation drawings I soon had the immense privilege to execute (inked originals and print series sold by Antonia Jannone 1980, last seen 2012 at Tendenza exhibition, Centre Pompidou), was to secure Rossi planet-wide fame.

Rossi archive material on Teatro del Mondo is available at : https://www.cca.qc.ca/fr/archives/379606/fonds-aldo-rossi/379618/projects/381879/teatro-del-mondo

Click below to see a video put together by Francesco Saverio Fera, using original Kodak Super8 footage that I shot in 1979 (Venice) & 1980 (Dubrovnik).

Other works, in the elaboration of which Rossi allowed me considerably more conceptual initiative than is usually granted to draughtsmen, are cited here :

Venezia Analoga, a capriccio of my own devising, which AR would exploit in various ways over at least the following eight years.

**Published (from my photo of my own dyeline print) in Aldo Rossi, Opera Grafica, p**

Rossi archive material (underlays and overlays) is available at : https://www.cca.qc.ca/fr/archives/379606/fonds-aldo-rossi/379618/projects/381879/teatro-del-mondo

Capella funeraria Molteni, Giussano

Rossi archive material on this project is available at : https://www.cca.qc.ca/fr/archives/379606/fonds-aldo-rossi/379618/projects/383425/cappella-funeraria-molteni

Competition project for Berlin IBA ’84 housing on the Wilhelmstrasse site of Speer’s razed NS headquarters.

Aligning the giant (originally symmetrical) ‘portaluppian’ portico on the axis of Anhalterstrasse required a design putsch on my behalf, with which AR wholeheartedly complied.

The shadow cast left serves to remind that AR wanted to adorn the brick towers with cornice mouldings, but was censured by GB who taunted him a “post-modernist” refusing to be associated with such an ambition. This I found regrettable, not just artistically, and so determined to reinstate Rossi’s ambition (actually realized in the case of Capella Molteni and other later works) in the Venezia Analoga capriccio.

Published in Architectural Review (1982?) from own coloured dyeline copy of the original drawing

See also the freehand sketch (later acquired by Heinrich Klotz, on behalf of Deutsches Architektur Museum in Frankfurt) that I made at home in Scotland over Christmas 1980 and showed to AR on return in January. Ma vuoi vincere questo concorso o no ? he cackled with amusement. The point being that our project would stand on the very site of Speer’s razed NS headquarters on Wilhelmstrasse, the very same as are mentioned in Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and no doubt countless other sources.

Initial design of Rauchstrasse apartment building in Rob Krier’s ‘urban villa’ quarter south of Tiergarten.

This, my drawing (without the original elevations) possibly on British butcher’s greaseproof paper (that I had introduced to Studio di Architettura), can be found at : https://www.cca.qc.ca/fr/recherche/details/collection/object/499926

The rooftop “widow’s walk” helped resolve the awkward geometry of the roof plan, which Krier had not wanted to be a parallel construction, but aligned parallel to the adjacent villas of his masterplan. Rossi proposed a compromise, aligning with surrounding streets, but remaining askance to the other blocks on the site.

After 27 months, I left my “year out” employment with Studio di Architettura in November 1981, to train for RIBA Part II (1985, at the Royal College of Art, London),.

Some years later I would again engage with Aldo Rossi alone, in a design partnership (to the general dismay of those running his Milan offices), as an independent professional, and France-registered architect.

Other schemes drawn for Studio di Architettura Aldo Rossi :

Scuola media inferiore, Broni (1980)

My main contribution was to make plan, section and elevations correspond, avoiding unsightly detail as the portico roof extends with valley gutters between masonry walls. Were proof required that I drew the final plans, spot the mistaken Italian spelling I made in labelling the spaces : WC femminine instead of WC femmine. On a site visit during construction (I was appalled at certain technical choices of the geometra supervising building works) AR asked me how I would finish the courtyard. Prato I suggested. Perché sei inglese ! he retorted. Ma io che sono italinao ci metterei un bel porfido.

Rossi archive material can be found at: https://www.cca.qc.ca/fr/archives/379606/fonds-aldo-rossi/379618/projects/383458/scuola-media-inferiore-in-localita-crocione-nel-comune-di-broni

Casa Vattani, Roma (1981)