Giorgio Grassi is one of Italy’s most important modern architects, as well as a member of the Italian rationalist school of design thought. He has contributed to the creation of numerous schools, museums and libraries, especially in Northern Italian area.
Image source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Grassi#/media/File:Giorgio_Grassi.jpg
Who Is Giorgio Grassi?
出生在1935,inMilan,Grassi studiedarchitectureat thePolitecnico di Milanouniversity, where he graduated in1960; immediatly afterwards, he worked for the magazineCasabella-Continuità, an urban planning and city based architecture-oriented publication, underErnesto Nathan Rogers. He quit the position in1965, when he began his career asProfessorin the schools of architecture of Milan, later moving to teaching inPescara,Valencia, andZurich,eventually coming back to the Politecnico as its professor of一个rchitectonic Composition.
Throughout his career, Grassi emphasized the rationalist nature of his compositions, characterized by sharp edges, bucket-like structures, simple shapes, with manyinfluencesbeing clearly traceable back to the legendary Swiss-French architect and designerLe Corbusier. His award-winning (such as the Bologna school complex, in1964, or the1984Berlin residential unit Lützowplatz) works and research are widely documented in his own published books, eventually compiled, in1988,in the volume, part of the “Quaderni Lotus” collection, “一个rchitettura, lingua morta” (“Architecture, dead language”), detailing projects intervening on already built architectural sites.
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What Made Him Famous?
Giorgio Grassi occupies a notable niche within Italian Modern architecture, with a rather wide collection of creations bearing his name. Among the most important, we can find theParc Colonnades, a project following his urban design concepts. Grassi aimed to “rebuild a piece of the historic city”, elevating it with a composition ofhigh architectural quality;the means to do so was the transposition of the award winningPotsdamer Platzcompetition submission, and the application of the “Berlin Mischung” concept, resulting in the coexistance of the various residential, commercial and productive functions within a single architectonic entity.
The complex consists of five building units, of which the central ones adopt thebuilding type to H. Evoking the bourgeois palaces of the past, the main facades open onto the “urban” street view, contourned with simple courtyards, lobbies, arcades, passages and cafes. The formal unity of the whole is guaranteed by the uniform height of theeaves, by thebrick wallsin the face, by theyellow sandstone slabsand, in particular, by thefacades,whose rectangular openings are arranged according to arigorous geometric pattern. In the executive phase, three of the five building blocks were ultimately assigned to other architecture firms.
Image source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daimler_Quartier_und_Potsdamer_Platz_Berlin.jpg
一个nother important piece of Grassi’s work can be found in thePiazza Matteotti – La Lizzaproject, characterized by including a few important building blocks of the ancient city within its whole. This is no mere aesthetic choice, as this way of building edifices is closely linked to the city:an element of mediationbetween it and thecountryside, itself a key part of the landscape. As a result, atightandlinearbuilding is given rise to that, on the one hand, “closes the curtain” of the city street and, on the other, opens to an understanding of thecountryside.一个s such, despite its modernity, the structure manages to fluidly enmesh itself in the cityscapes’ fabric.
Thefreeandstraight line, tangential to the front of theCiacci palace garden, is another key feature, as it unites theChurch of Santo Stefanoto the one found in the district ofDrago, forming a line that runs parallel to the old road of theSan Domenico gardensbefore changing direction. The building itself, finally, provides a wonderful view over the city and its works of art, gaining thus a unique relevance within its urban landscape.
Image source:https://divisare.com/projects/338020-giorgio-grassi-piazza-matteotti-la-lizza-a-siena
What Characterizes Grassi’s Style?
Grassi believed that architecture should work separately from political, economic, social and technological events, enstablishing itself as its own entity. Although it is described asvery rationalist, his architecture embodies asensibility to both classical and neo-classical architecture,while at the same time bearing influences by themodern movement. His formal work is characterized by clarity, honesty and simplicity without ingratiation, rhetoric, or spectacular stylistic leaps.
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One of Grassi’s most famoustrademarksis his use of exposed brickwork and square windows in most of his buildings. In his writings, he defers to the German socialist architects of the 1920s and refers to buildings and public spaces to be used as guidelines; Grassi, to this day, is anon-conformistand acriticof conventional mainstream architecture.
Images source:https://divisare.com/authors/8976-giorgio-grassi/projects/not_realized
Info sources:
https://giorgiograssi.divisare.pro/studio#about
http://thebiography.us/en/grassi-giorgio
http://www.capitalieuropee.altervista.org/4/417.html
