Architecture of the possible through fragments and lacks. On Aldo Rossi
«The fragment is also the reduction of the possible» (Aldo Rossi, Quaderno azzurro Q42, September 23, 1990). The theoretical research of Aldo Rossi is a support for identifying some operational categories related to the theme of fragment in the meaning of lack, that is presence of an entire mutilated around which the composition is constructed. The connotative discontinuity of the composition by fragments is of a temporal nature, linked to the analogical process that urges and establishes or to the more directly mnemonic process that the residual piece evokes. The configuration is discontinuous but not necessarily heterogeneous because the included pieces are part of the same nature, geometric and architectural, The compositional result is obtained through different instruments that work mainly by addition, inclusion, repetition, scale variation and dislocation. The morphological and aesthetic result has the "concrete" dimension of the dream represented by some operative categories. Italian cities and art are clear and constant references in Rossi's theoretical and design research, like Milan, Venice and the Venetian landscape as well as cities and landscape of Tuscany. At the same time, some overseas experiences are fundamental for the general reflection and development of some topics dear to him. During the American stay in the late 80s, he made a series of drawings for the cover of the issue 9 in May 1987, of the New York magazine Art-forum 25, titling them Fragments. This graphic experience constitutes a nucleus of reflection that adds to the scientific and objective definition the significant value of the subjective and personal experience, such as to condition the representation of graphic drawings and projects. The first graphic hypothesis is a fantasy of pieces taken from their own projects and from American urban landscapes, assembled according to a narrative, almost filmic sequence: scenographic pieces united sequentially following an internal proportional rhythmic order emphasized by a precise play of complementary saturated colors. The graphics are clear, almost an incision and the attention to detail shifts the attention from the whole to the particular. The successive drawings progressively abandon the rigor of the rhythmic succession towards side-by-side pieces that mutually contaminate each other in a graphic strip that fades from one scene to the next, forming a unique scene: the urban representation becomes more and more the landscape representation in which the perceptual and subjective presence is decisive. The architecture of the city is defined through analogous architectures acting according to a narrative methodology, of evocative and symbolic pieces. The physical fragment is simultaneous to the mnemonic fragment: it becomes a design device so as to be able to enumerate some distinct operational categories, such as the analogy, the citation, the mnemonic reference or monito, activating a reflection on the locus through the world of forms, mainly from the past. International Conference in Milan. Politecnico di Milano, 11-12-13 giugno 2018
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