Aldo Rossi The Architecture of the City

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Aldo Rossi- The Architecture of the City

• Aldo Rossi
• Born May 3rd 1931
• Died September 4th 1997
• Italian architect, born in Milan.
• One of the most influential architects during the
  period 1972-1988
• The Architecture of the city
• First Published 1966
• Become an extremely important and influential
  text to architects, students and Urbanists.

By Architecture I mean not only the Visual image
of the city and the sum of its different
architectures, but architecture as construction,
the construction of the city over time
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Development due to mans wishes for beauty and
comfort
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Florence
Cities have matured creating their own memory or
historical imprint.
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San Lorenzo- Florence
Individual (Building)
Collective (District)
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Permanent monuments remind us of our history
Trees of remembrance, Piccadilly Gardens,
Manchester
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History leaves an imprint telling the cities
story to next generations
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• Permanent monuments and urban artefacts hold the
  key to a deeper understanding of our urban
  environment.

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The Architecture of the CityAldo Rossi

• Chapter 1
• The structure of urban artefacts

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The individuality of urban artefacts

• Rossi considers the city as
• A large, complex man-made object
• Urban artefacts
• Rossi is keen to establish and identify the
  nature of urban artefacts
• Suggests that urban artefact could be a building,
  street, district, urban complex or palace

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Critique of naive functionalism

• Rossi believes that any explanation of urban
  artefacts in terms of function must be rejected
• The idea of a norm impedes our understanding of
  understanding the true laws of architecture.
• Functionalist classifications presuppose that all
  urban artefacts are created to serve particular
  functions in a static way.
• Convenient for elementary classifications but
  offers no explanation for more complex facts.

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1930s housing - Hulme
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Post 1990s housing - Hulme
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Monuments and the theory of permanences

• Rossi believes that the study of social context
  can help us to understand urban evolution
• We can read a city through its monuments
• The theory of permanences as posited by both
  Poete and Lavedan.
• Permanences or persistences are revealed
  through
• monuments, the physical signs of the past
• the persistence of a citys basic layout and
  plans cities tend to remain on their axes of
  development. They grow according to the meaning
  of their older day artefacts.
• The plan as a generator

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Post 1990s housing - Hulme
1950s Hulme
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Post 1990s housing - Hulme
1980s Hulme
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Post 1990s housing - Hulme
Present Day Hulme
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Post 1990s housing - Hulme
Present Day Hulme Urban Artefacts
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The Architecture of the CityAldo Rossi
Chapter 3 The Individuality of Urban Artefacts
Architecture
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The Locus
The Locus is the relationship between a specific
location the buildings that are in it. It is at
once singular universal
Genus loci, local divinity. the vital secret
of a relationship between old new. The Locus
participates as a unique physical place.
The Locus itself is a single artefact determined
by Its space time Topographical dimensions
its form By its being on the seat of a
succession of ancient and recent events and by
its memory
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An example The Catholic Church
The Catholic religion is a universal concept
It is possible to identify a singular point by a
particular event that occurred there. Henri
Paul Eydoux argues that certain places have
always been considered unique These places
have real signs of space a relationship both to
chance tradition.
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How urban elements become defined
At the decisive moments of history,
architecture reproposed its own necessity to be
sign event in order to establish shape a new
era. We must recognise the importance of both
form the rational processes of architecture.
Each time we find ourselves in the presence of
real urban artefacts, we realise their
complexity, this overcomes any narrow
interpretation based on function.
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The Roman Forum

• The Roman forum is an excellent example of the
  relationship between architecture locus
• it is a monument of fundamental importance for a
  comprehensive understanding of urban artefacts.

The Roman Forum was the centre of the Roman
empire a reference point for the construction
transformation of so many cities of the classical
world. It was a foundation for classical
architecture the science of the city as
practiced by the Romans.
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Geographical formations charted the course of
the extra-urban map. Therefore Rome was not
based on a clear idea of urban design, but
instead on a structure indebted to the
terrain. The beauty of an urban artefact
resides both in the locus of architecture which
they embody and in the collectives reasons for
desiring them
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THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY

• The value of history seen as collective memory,
  as the relationship of the collective to its
  place, is that it helps us grasp the significance
  of urban structure, its individuality, and its
  architecture which is the form of this
  individuality

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What is collective memory?The soul of the city
the citys history
POTSDAMER PLATZ, BERLIN

• The citys distinctive character is formed from
  its memory, from past events. It is what makes
  the city unique from any other.
• The city itself is the collective memory of its
  people, and like memory it is associated with
  objects and people.

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Memory becomes the guiding thread of the entire
complex urban structure

• Rome has been designed around its urban artifacts
  which signifies their importance to the city and
  inturn provides the city with its strong
  identity.

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The greatest monuments of architecture are of
neccessity linked intimately to its city

• Architecture of urban artifacts is distinguished
  from art. The latter exists for itself alone.
• In what way does history speak through art?
  Primarily through architectural monuments, which
  are the willed expression of power

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The absence of collective memory

• Milton Keynes is an example of a city that
  reflects the absence of collective memory
• Built as a post 1960s new town it does not have
  typical layers of history. It has not been shaped
  by urban artefacts only by a simple grid system.
• Without history what can be said of its identity
  and its future as an evolving city?

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THE UNION BETWEEN PAST AND THE FUTURE EXISTS IN
THE VERY IDEA OF THE CITY. THAT IT FLOWS THROUGH
IN THE SAME WAY THAT MEMORY FLOWS THROUGH THE
LIFE OF A PERSON

• JUST BY WALKING THROUGH A CITY WE GET AN IDEA OF
  EVENTS THAT HAVE SHAPED IT AND INTURN HOW THEY
  SHAPE THE DESIGNS OF THE FUTURE.

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Daniel Libeskind To provide meaningful
architecture is not to parody history but to
articulate it.

• Daniel Libeskind uses the idea of collective
  memory to his advantage time and time again in
  his work.
• His architecture is purposely built to symbolise
  past events and succeeds in evoking peoples
  memories/thoughts of the event through the spaces
  created.
• Could his buildings be an example of urban
  artifacts of the future? His buildings have been
  shaped by past events, but will they in turn
  succeed in shaping events of the future?

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The Architecture of the CityAldo Rossi
Chapter 4 The Evolution of Urban Artefacts
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Land Ownership
In Die stadt und ihr Boden, Bernoulli illuminated
one of the most important, perhaps fundamental,
problem of the city, one which constitutes a
strong constraint on urban development.
(Bernoulli no date supplied, cited in Rossi,
1994152) Land ownership, observes Bernoulli,
whether of rural land or urban land, tends to be
based on subdivision. (Bernoulli no date
supplied, cited in Rossi, 1994153)
Organization and subdivision of land, as seen in
the evolution of a suburban area of Basel,
Switzerland comparison of property boundaries in
1850, 1920 and 1940. Initially, land was used for
agriculture, then reorganized for building
purposes, and finally extensively subdivided
into building plots.
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Land Ownership French Revolution

• In large measure, the historical fact that
  initiated the process of dismembering the urban
  land was the French revolution (circa 1789).
• large estates of the aristocracy and the clergy
  were sold to the middle class and
• to farmers.
• thus, great state-owned areas are broken up
• Bernoulli (no date supplied, cited in Rossi,
  1994 153) added that the revolutionaries at that
  time were unaware of the enormous communal
  capital they were alienating
• the communal lands that should have been
  confiscated and held by the
• communities rather than subdivided among
  private owners,
• thereby jeopardizing the rational development of
  cities (and countryside).

Land Ownership Berlin, Germany
When in execution of Adam smiths proposal,
Berlins Financial Law 1808 permitted government
lands to be used to liquidate government debts
and to be transferred into private ownership.
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Land Ownership

• Rossi (1994 154), in contrary to Bernoulli,
  remarked that the breaking up of the land on the
  one hand led to the degeneration of the city, but
  on the other, it actually promoted its
  development.
• He added that the division of the great estates,
  expropriations, and the formation of a new land
  registry system were all necessary economic
  phases in the evolution of Western cities. What
  varies from city to city is the political context
  in which this process came about .

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Local Precedent - Hulme
800 1700s
Agriculture
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Population 162



1773
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Population Growth - 1677


1801
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Industrial Revolution


late 18th century
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1840s
Housing Slum - thanks to the Industrial
Revolution Population 50,000
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The Crescent



1960s
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Hulme Today
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Theories in Practice

• Cemetery of San Cataldo
• Date 1971
• Location Modena, Italy

• Merging together Old With new
• Central chapel creates a visual monument

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Chapel
House of The Dead

• Creating routes or Streets through to the
  House of the Dead
• Reflecting on the memory of those who have died

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• Civic Centre Perugia, Italy, 1982