Deformation And Evolution

Perhaps the observation of things has remained my most important formal education; for observation later becomes transformed into memory. Now I seem to see all the things I have observed arranged like tools in a neat row; they are aligned as in a botanical chart, or a catalogue, or a dictionary. But this catalogue, lying somewhere between imagination and memory, is not neutral; it always reappears in several objects and constitutes their deformation and, in some way, their evolution.

Whenever I followed the progress of my few realized projects, I liked the errors made on the construction site, the little deformations, the changes which became remedial in some unexpected way. Indeed, they amazed me because they began to seem the life of the structure. As a matter of fact, I believe that any original order is open to practical changes, and that it allows for all the failures of human weakness. Because of this belief, my commitment has always been fundamentally different from that of my contemporaries and professors.

by Aldo Rossi

Where Lines Intersect

Recalling the city suggests to me a reading not only of my own architecture but indeed of architecture in general. I believe that I have access to a privileged way of looking, of observing. It is a position that is closer to the engineer’s than to that of the psychologist or geographer: I like to apprehend a structure in its broad outlines and then think how these lines intersect. This is no different from the experience of life and relationships: the nucleus of a fact is always rather simple, and indeed, the more simple a fact is, the more it is destined to clash with the events which it itself produces. I am reminded of a sentence from Hemingway which I found frightening yet fascinating:

“All truly wicked things are born from an innocent moment.”

by Aldo Rossi

Film

Surrealism is a definite part of my architecture. For example, Luis Bunuel films, Bunuel shows the reality of the subject, but with a particular eye or from a particular point of view. I think to parallel my work to that of Bunuel’s would be most interesting. It is not a revival, but the many points of view in the study of realism.

by Aldo Rossi

The Life of Architecture Is Always Important

When I was a student at Politecnico, I was always cited by the professors as an example not to follow! This means, undoubtedly, that my architecture provoked something passionate and something hateful, and I don’t know frankly why. But I believe every one of us expresses himself in his own work, and there is something personal in my work, which I passed along.

I believe that the major importance of life is based on moral and poetic principles. I always think of several moments and memories. The memory of the city is very important; the collective memory not the personal memory. In this sense, I find the life of architecture always important.

The emergence of relations among things, more than the things themselves, always gives rise to new meanings.

Because every aspect of the building is anticipated, and because it is precisely this anticipation that allows for freedom, the architecture is like a date, a honeymoon, a vacation—like everything that is anticipated so that it can occur. Although I also love what is uncertain, I have always thought that only small-minded people with little imagination are opposed to discreet acts of organization; for it is only such efforts of organization that in the end permit contretemps, variations, joys, disappointments.

An architectural project is a vocational or a love affair; in either case, it is a construction. One can hold oneself back in the face of this vocation or affair, but it will always remain an unresolved thing.

The houses of the dead and those of childhood, the theater, or the house of representation—all these projects and buildings seem to me to embrace the seasons and ages of life. Yet they no more represent themes than functions; rather they are the forms in which life, and therefore death, are manifested.

by Aldo Rossi