Aldo Rossi

(1931 - 1997)

quotes about Aldo Rossi

 

"Twelve years later I made a visit to an Aldo Rossi building in Fukuoka, in the deep south of Japan. It looks like a caricature. Its facades, made of red Persian travertine, are hermetically closed; the roof is defined by an overblown copper roofline. It looks a little bit cynical. It looks deliciously fascist. It is a hotel, and some people even say it is a love hotel.
    Rossi did not do the interior. To build it, he dumped his ideological baggage. But it has a weird fascination. It is horribly convincing, and in a way, horribly beautiful. You ask yourself, did Rossi become more Rossi at the moment of abandoning all his pretensions? I think this is one of the issues that the whole question of globalization raises. When we operate in our own context, are we not by definition incredibly inhibited or incredibly camouflaged as members of this context? Does being part of a specific culture impose a systematic dishonesty upon us, because we are part of a culture and not free? Maybe one of the exhilarating possibilities of a leap to somewhere else, where we no longer have to posture to become members in good standing of our communities, is this uncamouflaged freedom.
    What is amazing about Rossi's hotel is that it is Japanese. It dominates its surroundings like a samurai castle. What is also amazing is that the Rossi poetry has been realized to perfection in his absence. Rossi never worked on the building beyond drawing an initial sketch, and he never visited the site except to go to the opening, yet it has a sense of Rossi that no building of his in Europe has. That is a fairly amazing state of affairs. I would say it is a building that no Japanese could ever have imagined, but that Rossi could never have built." (Rem Koolhaas)

 

project list

 

1998 MOJIKO HOTEL, Kitakyushu city, Fukuoka
1991 AMBIENTE SHOWROOM, Minato ward, Tokyo

ASABA DESIGN STUDIO, Minato ward, Tokyo

1998.1

MOJIKO HOTEL

+ Morris Adjmi

+ Uchida Shigeru

address:   9-11 Minato-cho, Moji ward, Kitakyushu city, Fukuoka
Japanese:   福岡県北九州市門司区港町9丁目11
site area:     5,540.59 m²
building area:     3,942.37 m²
total floor area:   17,689.72 m²
storeys:   9 above ground, 1 roof
structure:   RC, SRC
sources:  

[Shotenkenchiku] 1998/4 pages 86-94

1991.11

AMBIENTE SHOWROOM

+ Morris Adjmi

address:   4-11-1 Minami-Aoyama, Minato ward, Tokyo
maps:   [Yahoo]
total floor area:   743 m²
general contractor:   Obayashi
sources:  

[Architectural Map of Tokyo] page 23

[Tajima Noriyuki: Tokio] pages 132-134

1991.07

ASABA DESIGN STUDIO

+ Morris Adjmi

address:   3-9-2 Minami-Aoyama, Minato ward, Tokyo
maps:   [Yahoo]
total floor area:   238 m²
sources:   [Architectural Map of Tokyo] page 22