The great Italian architect, designer, theorist and printmaker Aldo Rossi (1931–97) galvanized the postmodernist architectural movement in the middle of the 20th century with his unique synthesis of influences such as Adolf Loos, Giorgio de Chirico and Soviet architecture. From his publication Architecture of the City (1966) to his 1976 exhibition Analogous City, Rossi spent a decade developing a theory of urban design that focused on the “collective memory” of a city as an essential element of its urban planning and gave consideration to how buildings and urban areas age over time.

Here, Rossi’s theory is applied to his own works from that period, both built and unbuilt, in a careful selection of 23 projects that express this memory-based paradigm of civic existence and construction. Aldo Rossi: The Urban Fact thus unifies Rossi’s theory and practice, demonstrating the visionary dimension driving his singular brand of postmodernism.

Kersten Geers, Jelena Pancevac, Stefano Graziani

Walther König, 2021

29.7 X 21 cm, 240 pages