Vittorio Gregotti

Vittorio Gregotti is a Italian Architecte , born in 1927 with Novare.

Biographical elements

Graduate in architecture of the polytechnic school of Milan, it works in parallel for the Casabella review, of which it takes the drafting as a chief of 1955 to 1963. He also teaches architecture at the Architectural Institute of Venice, in faculties of Milan and Palermo, and animates conferences in the universities of Tokyo, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Lausanne, Harvard, Philadelphia, Princeton, Cambridge. International Grand Prix with the 13th Triennial one of Milan in 1964, Vittorio Gregotti was director of visual arts of the Biennale de Venise of 1974 to 1976. It founds its agency Gregotti Associati in 1974. In 1999, Gregotti Associati International founds the company Global Project Development, specialized in Design and durable architectural development for the countries in tourist rise, with for objective the respect of the environment.

Theoretical elements

As an architect, it took his distances with the theories and the dominant models, inherited the modern Mouvement, to find its inspiration in the local and regional cultures. It adopts in its projects a step aiming at attaching them to the history of the site, and not to a abstraction aiming at its reproducibility in an unspecified site. One allots several orientations in his work to him. It is sometimes related to the New Italian Rationalists, like Giorgio Grassi, referring to the theses of Jane Jacobs, Robert Venturi, and Aldo Rossi, which had induced a reorientation of architectural creation compared to the data of the site, it as of the years 1960-1970. The interest carried by these theorists with the urban life and the town planning of district found an echo in the achievements of the members of the school of the Tessin and Tendenza - name given to this group of architects historicists.

The values which are allotted to him rest on two anti-modernistic principles: on the one hand, the rejection of the tendency universalizing of modernistic rationalism and, on the other hand, the valorization of the historical sources, accommodating the local traditions in logics of project and construction. These aspects are visible at the same time in the projects of its agency, but also in its dense bibliographical production.

Abstract of two of its principal works

The territory of architecture (1 edition 1966)

It is about traditional of the literature of the 20th century bearing on architecture. In this one, Gregotti discusses some of the main questions in practice architectural: the complexity of the construction materials in architecture, its relationship to the history, the genesis of the concept of Rationality and the demarcation of the “tradition of Modern”, the complexity of the concept of typology and the Geography like central theme constituting at the same time material and the engine of the intentions of the project.

Taking into account in its reflections the categorizations outlined in the Phenomenology, the Structuralism and the Semiology, Gregotti develops a design of the architectural practice which, says it, is not practiced “like treaty, but rather like a exercise”, aiming at defining “the field of competence and the articulation existing between the disciplines of the architectural design”.

About this work, Manfredo Tafuri (Progetti E will architettura, 1982) wrote that the main theme of the work was the dialog between architectural geography and signs, imposing a scaling implying a new methodology in the architectural design, poetry being however always subjacent.

The visible city ( the citta visibile , Turin 1991)

As Gregotti wrote it itself in the introduction of its work, “ during these forty last years, the most important transformation coming from the " critical positive" modernity in architecture consists of the recognition of the importance of the taking into account of the context - history and geographical - as well as meaning elements specific site. The modern architectural project then becomes conscious of its own nature, dialog between what exists and the modifications that it will bring there”. This work seeks consequently the answers to the problems arising from the urban project and more generally from the transformations than underwent the current physical context. However, these reflections do not remain exclusively theoretical and are supported for examples of architectural projects thinking of the various ways of building a new city “ beginning with the city itself and its history ”. Gregotti is animated conviction according to which it is always possible “ for the culture of the city planning and territorial to propose a new state of balance ”, based on “ the regrouping and the clearness, which are the most important tools of architecture ”.

Principal achievements

The achievements are presented in the following way:

Date, topic: building, place; principle of project put into practice.

With Menghetti and Stoppino:

1968 landscape exception: Filatura Bossi, Novare; the architectural object as an exception.
the 1979-1972 invader, protection: New scientific departments of the university of Palermo; expressionnism.
the 1968-1969 hinge: Rinascente, Palermo; the object, the form.

With Purini:

1969 Meets, assonances and dissensions: Rinascente, Turin; the course like means of welding.
1971 the dam, to contain the forces: New university of Florence.

At Gregotti Associati:

Town planning

2001-2007 Urban project for the center of Shanghai
2001-2003 Master line of Avellino
1995-2001 Master line of Pavia
1987-1995 Master line of Turin

Landscape

1984 Park of the Imperial Forums in Rome

urban Design

1998-2007 Restoration of the industrial park Cecchini, Civitanova Mr.
1991 Operation Star, Strasbourg
1990 Sextius-Mirabeau Operation, Aix-en-Provence
1985-1988 Restoration of the zone Pirelli - Bicoccia, Milan

Others

1976 Again stopping: Together residential with Cefalù.
1972-1973 Taking into account of the site, axes of growth, alternation urbanized/natural: University of Calabria.
1980 Report of city: Reorganization of the districts of Berlin Tiergarten Southern.
urban Threshold: Venice, projects of the faces of Giudecca and Rio LED Big shot Lungo for the building sites of the ACTV, and the island of Tronchetto for the new tertiary center.

Bibliographical elements

By Vittorio Gregotti

It Territorio LED' Architettura, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1966
Architettura LED' Espressionismo, Milan, Fabbri, 1967.
New Directions in Italian Structures, New York, Braziller, 1968
It Disegno del Prodotto Industriale. Italia 1860-1980, Milan, Electa, 1982.
Questioni di Architettura, Turin, Einaudi, 1986.
Cinque Dialoghi Necessari, Milan, Electa, 1990.
Dentro Architettura, Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 1991.
Città Visibile, Turin, Einaudi, 1991.
Scarpe di Van Gogh, Turin, Einaudi, 1994.
Venezia Città della Nuova Modernità, Venice, Consorzio Venezia Nuova, 1998.
Racconti di Architettura, Milan, Skira, 1998.
Identità E Crisi LED' Architettura Europea, Turin, Einaudi, 1999.
Sulle Elm di Palladio, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2000.
Diciassette Lettere sull' Architettura, Rome-Bari, Laterza, will 2000.Architettura, tecnica, finalità, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2002.
will architettura It LED realismo critico, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2004.
Autobiografia LED XX secolo, Milano, Skira 2005.
will architettura It nell' epoca LED' ceaseless, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2006.

On Vittorio Gregotti

Tafuri, Mr. (1982). Vittorio Gregotti. Milan: Electa.
" The shape of the territory: an analysis of landscape through work of Vittorio Gregotti" (1989). Bulletin of the Association of French Geographers. 66. 3. 199-204.

External bonds

Internet site of the workshop (,)

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