In one of his most important publications, The Architecture of the City (1966), Aldo Rossi derived a number of geometrically abstract building types from studies of vernacular and classical architecture as well as from the larger morphology, or shape, of cities. By referencing existing models, Rossi’s constructions evoke memories and associations.
In many of his drawings, familiar fragments of previous projects — regularly measured square openings, triangular prisms, thin colonnades — are arranged in different variations to create new relationships. According to Rossi, the meanings of buildings emerge in relation to the city of which they are a part.
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