Promo testo stripe

Aldo Rossi and the cemetery in Modena

“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
http://www.comune.modena.it/galleria
The Modena cemetery, photo by Luigi Ghirri
The Modena cemetery, photo by Luigi Ghirri
Aldo Rossi, Sketch for the Modena cemetery, 1977, felt-tip pen on paper cm 21x15
Aldo Rossi, Sketch for the Modena cemetery, 1977, felt-tip pen on paper cm 21x15

Designing from a single gesture: Vaselli’s latest collection

The Hoop series translates a morphological gesture into a family of travertine bathroom furnishings, where the poetry of the material meets the rigor of form.

Latest on Architecture

Latest on Domus

Read more
China Germany India Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Sri Lanka Korea icon-camera close icon-comments icon-down-sm icon-download icon-facebook icon-heart icon-heart icon-next-sm icon-next icon-pinterest icon-play icon-plus icon-prev-sm icon-prev Search icon-twitter icon-views icon-instagram