Aldo Rossi. Teatri

Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo returns to the Venetian Lagoon. This time as a model re-built on a large scale, to take it back to where it landed, during the 1979-1980 Biennale Teatro, then to cross the sea again to Dubrovnik in Croatia. This is how Venice’s Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova celebrates Aldo Rossi’s love and obsession for theatre. An exhibition that brings together for the first time fifteen of the Milanese architect’s designs dating from the early Sixties to 1997: they include 120 architectural sketches and studies, studio and competition models, drawings, props, from architectural projects designed and built, to scenery for operas and ballets, right through to spectacular stage designs. Key features of the exhibition, curated by Germano Celant with the art direction of Gae Aulenti, are Parma’s Teatro Paganini (1964), Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice (1983-1989), Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo presented in Venice (1979) and his design for the Frankfurt an der Oder theatre (1994), through to his reconstruction project for the Gran Teatro la Fenice in Venice. Theatres that saw Molteni&C working alongside Aldo Rossi to accomplish highly ambitious projects, from the wooden casing to the real solid cypress model of part of the Palladiana basilica for the Sala Nuova of the Gran Teatro la Fenice, a model on display in the exhibition, to the seats of the Teatro Carlo Felice. A long and intense partnership with Aldo Rossi, which led to the development of furnishings that went on to be produced industrially, such as the Teatro series, the Carteggio desk and the Milano chair. Objects destined to become icons, like his theatres. “Aldo Rossi. Teatri” is on view at the Magazzino del Sale in Venice from 30 June until 25 November 2012; over the same period, installed in the Spazio Vedova and curated by Fabrizio Gazzarri, is the “Lacerazione. Plurimi/Binari ’77/’78” exhibition of works by Venetian artist, Emilio Vedova