“A structure of bones, a city of bones, made of inhabitable bones”. This is how Aldo Rossi (1931-97) described his design for the cemetery at Modena, one of his most famous public works as well of one of the most evocative.
A large cube in red brick dominates the building and contrasts sharply with the surrounding landscape, a bare northern Italian plain which in winter is covered in a blanket of snow. In his autobiography, recalling the conception of the design, the Milanese architect, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1990 wrote that the year 1971 represented a turnaround in his life. Following a car accident and a number of days passed in hospital, he began to contemplate the notion of a cemetery thought of as a ‘city of the dead’.
Rossi’s project is now the centre of an exhibition, organised by the Galleria Civica and the Direzione Generale per l'Architettura e l'Arte Contemporanee del Ministero, which illustrates it through the beautiful drawings by the ‘painter-architect’ and a model. It also offers the chance to present the purchase of the Aldo Rossi archives on the part of the DARC.
until 3.11.2002
Aldo Rossi. Il Cimitero di Modena. I disegni e un modello
Palazzo Santa Margherita
corso Canalgrande 103, Modena
https://www.comune.modena.it/galleria
Aldo Rossi and the cemetery in Modena

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- 30 September 2002
