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Gaetana "Gae" Aulenti (; 4 December 1927–31 October 2012) was an Italian architect and designer who was active in furniture design,
graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscip ...
,
stage design Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trained ...
, lighting design,
exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...
and
interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordin ...
. She was known for her contributions to the design of important museums such as the
Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...
in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
(in collaboration with ACT Architecture), the
Contemporary Art Gallery A contemporary art gallery is normally a commercial art gallery operated by an art dealer which specializes in displaying for sale contemporary art, usually new works of art by living artists. This approach has been called the "Castelli Method" ...
at the
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
in Paris, the restoration of
Palazzo Grassi Palazzo Grassi (also known as the Palazzo Grassi-Stucky) is a building in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice ( Italy), between the Palazzo Moro Lin and the campo San Samuele. History First owners During the 16th ce ...
in
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
, and the
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco – Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture"About"
Asian Art Museum website. ...
(in collaboration with
HOK Architects HOK, formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum and legally HOK Group, Inc., is an American design, architecture, engineering, and urban planning firm, founded in 1955. As of 2018, HOK is the largest U.S.-based architecture-engineering f ...
). Aulenti was one of only a few women architects and designers who gained notoriety in their own right during the post-war period in Italy, where Italian designers sought to make meaningful connections to production principles, and influenced culture far beyond Italy. This avant-garde design movement blossomed into an entirely new type of architecture and design, one full of imaginary utopias leaving standardization to the past. Aulenti's involvement in the Milan design scene of the 1950s and 1960s formed her into an architect respected for her analytical abilities to navigate metropolitan complexity no matter the medium. Her conceptual development can be followed in the design magazine Casabella, to which she contributed regularly. Her contemporaries were
Cini Boeri Cini Boeri (19 June 1924 – 9 September 2020) was an Italian architect and designer. Career Boeri earned her degree at the Politecnico di Milano university in 1951. At that time, there were more female interior designers than architects becau ...
, Vittorio Gregotti,
Franca Helg Franca Helg (21 February 1920 Milan – 4 June 1989 Milan) was an Italian designer and architect. She also had a career teaching at Istituto Universitario Architettura Venezia and Polytechnic of Milan. She collaborated with Franco Albini from 1 ...
,
Giancarlo de Carlo Giancarlo De Carlo (12 December 1919 − 4 June 2005) was an Italian architect. Biography Giancarlo De Carlo was born in Genoa, Liguria, in 1919. In 1939, he enrolled at the Milan Polytechnic, where he graduated in engineering in 1943. Durin ...
,
Aldo Rossi Aldo Rossi (3 May 1931 – 4 September 1997) was an Italian architect and designer who achieved international recognition in four distinct areas: architectural theory, drawing and design and also product design. He was one of the leading exponen ...
, and
Lella Vignelli Lella Vignelli (August 13, 1934December 22, 2016) was an Italian architect, designer, and entrepreneur. She had "a lifelong collaborative working relationship" with her husband and business partner, Massimo Vignelli, with whom she founded the de ...
.


Early life and education

A native of
Palazzolo dello Stella Palazzolo dello Stella ( fur, Palassôl) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Udine in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about northwest of Trieste and about southwest of Udine Udine ( , ; fur, Udin; la, Utinum) ...
(
Friuli Friuli ( fur, Friûl, sl, Furlanija, german: Friaul) is an area of Northeast Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity containing 1,000,000 Friulians. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giuli ...
), Gaetana Aulenti (Gae, as she was known, is pronounced similarly to "guy")Douglas Martin (November 1, 2012)
Gae Aulenti, Musée d’Orsay Architect, Dies at 84
''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
grew up playing the piano and reading books. She studied architecture at the Milan Polytechnic University and graduated in 1954 as one of two women in a class of 20. She told The Times that she studied architecture in defiance of her parents’ hope that she would become “a nice society girl.” She soon joined the staff of Casabella, a design magazine, and joined with her peers in rejecting the architecture of masters like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. They called themselves the “Neo Liberty” movement, where they favoured traditional building methods coupled with individual stylistic expression.


Work and career

Aulenti began her career as a private-practicing architect and freelance designer out of Milan in 1954. Her architectural practice included many interior flat designs for corporate clients, including
Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...
,
Banca Commerciale Italiana Banca Commerciale Italiana (COMIT), founded in 1894, was once one of the largest banks in Italy. In 1999 it merged with a banking group consisting of Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde (aka Cariplo; est. 1823) and Banco Ambroveneto, w ...
,
Pirelli Pirelli & C. S.p.A. is a multinational tyre manufacturer based in Milan, Italy. The company, which has been listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 1922, is the 6th-largest tyre manufacturer and is focused on the consumer production of tyres ...
,
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part o ...
, and Knoll International. Her freelance design work included products for Poltronova, Candle,
Ideal Standard Ideal Standard is a privately held multinational plumbing fixture company headquartered in Belgium. It operates primarily in Europe and Latin America. The brand dates back to 1949, when it was used to brand fixtures of the foreign operations of t ...
,
Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Malletier, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French high-end luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ranging from luxury bags and leathe ...
, and
Artemide __NOTOC__ Artemide () is a design-oriented Italian manufacturer founded by Ernesto Gismondi and Sergio Mazza in 1960. Based in Pregnana Milanese, a suburb of Milan, the company specialises in the manufacture of lighting designed by designers a ...
, to name a few. Branching into written publication, Aulenti joined the editorial staff at the design magazine '' Casabella-Continuità'' from 1955 until 1965 as an art director, doing graphic design work, and later served on the board of directors for the renamed Lotus International magazine (based in Milan from 1974 onwards). During that time she became part of a group of young professionals influenced by the philosophy of
Ernesto Nathan Rogers Ernesto Nathan Rogers (March 16, 1909 – November 7, 1969) was an Italian architect, writer and educator. Biography Born in Trieste, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he graduated from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 1932. He is the cous ...
. Aulenti taught at Venice School of Architecture as an assistant instructor in architectural composition from 1960 to 1962 and at the Milan School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University from 1964 to 1967. With these experiences, she became a visiting lecturer at congresses and professional institutions in Europe and North America from 1967 onwards. She sought membership in two of them, American Society of Interior Designers, 1967, and Member of Movimento Studi per I'Architettura, Milan, 1955-61. During that time, she also designed for a department store,
La Rinascente (La) Rinascente (; ) is a collection of high-end stores with Italian and international brands in fashion, accessories, beauty, homeware, design and food. It operates eleven stores in Italy, including its general headquarters in Milan and two f ...
, and later designed furniture for Zanotta, where she created two of her most well known pieces, the "April" folding chair which was made from stainless steel with a removable cover, and her "Sanmarco" table constructed from plate-glass. Transitioning from teaching, Aulenti joined
Luca Ronconi Luca Ronconi (8 March 1933 – 21 February 2015) was an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director. Biography Ronconi was born in Sousse, Tunisia. After growing up in Tunisia, where his mother was a school teacher, Ronconi graduated ...
as a collaborator in figurative research for Laboratorio di Progettazione Teatrale out of Prato, Florence (1976–79). She then also served as vice-president of the Italian Association of Industrial Design (ADI). In 1981, she was chosen to turn the 1900 Beaux Arts
Gare d'Orsay Gare d'Orsay is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (Paris–Orléans Railway). It was the ...
train station, a spectacular landmark originally designed by
Victor Laloux Victor Alexandre Frederic Laloux (15 November 1850 – 13 July 1937) was a French Beaux-Arts architect and teacher. Life Born in Tours, Laloux studied at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts ''atelier'' of Louis-Jules André, with his studies ...
, into the Musée d’Orsay, a museum of mainly French art from 1848 to 1915. Her work on the Musée d’Orsay led to commissions to create a space for the National Museum of Modern Art at the
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
; the restoration of the
Palazzo Grassi Palazzo Grassi (also known as the Palazzo Grassi-Stucky) is a building in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice ( Italy), between the Palazzo Moro Lin and the campo San Samuele. History First owners During the 16th ce ...
as an art museum in
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
; the conversion of an old Italian embassy in Berlin into an Academy of Science; and the restoration of a 1929 exhibition hall in Barcelona as
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (, English language, English: "National Art Museum of Catalonia"), abbreviated as MNAC, is a museum of Catalonia, Catalan visual art located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Situated on Montjuïc hill at the e ...
. In
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, she transformed the city’s Beaux Art Main Library into a
museum of Asian art The Museum of Asian Art (german: Museum für Asiatische Kunst) is a part of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin since 2020. Before its relocation it was sited in the neighborhood of the borough of , Berlin, Germany. It is one of the Berlin State Muse ...
. In 2011, Aulenti oversaw the expansion of Perugia Airport. Aulenti also occasionally worked as a stage designer for Luca Ronconi, including for ''
Samstag aus Licht (Saturday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting and four scenes, and was the second of seven to be composed for the opera cycle ''Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche'' (Light: The Seven Days of the Week). It was written betwe ...
'' (1984). She also planned six stores for the fashion designer Adrienne Vittadini, including one on
Rodeo Drive Rodeo Drive is a street in Beverly Hills, California, with its southern segment in the City of Los Angeles. Its southern terminus is at Beverwil Drive, and its northern terminus is at its intersection with Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The ...
in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. She even designed the mannequins. Aulenti's work in theater was highly architectural, as she saw 'the scenic box not as a container to embellish and render recognizable in the sense of something already known, but as a real space in itself". Her career ended with over 200 built works.


Selected individual and group exhibitions

* 1963: ''Aspetti dell'Arte Contemporanea,'' L'Aquila, Italy * 1967: ''Gae Aulenti'', Gimbels Department Store, New York * 1968: ''Italian Design'', Hallmark Gallery, New York * 1972: ''Italy: The New Domestic Landscape'', Museum of Modern Art, New York * 1979: ''Gae Aulenti'', Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan * 1985: ''Le Affinità Elettive,'' Milan Triennal * 1985: ''10 Proposte per Milano,'' Milan Triennal


Style

Aulenti worked in the post-war period of Italy while creating pieces that spanned across a wide variety of styles and influences. She always wanted the focus of the room to be the occupants, believing people make the room a room. She had a modest style; ''Vogue'' quoted her as saying "advice to whoever asks me how to make a home is to not have anything, just a few shelves for books, some pillows to sit on. And then, to take a stand against the ephemeral, against passing trends...and to return to lasting values."


Various works

* Poltronova, Sgarsul Rocking Chair, 1962 * Poltronova, Locus Solus Collection, 1964 * Martinelli Luce Table Lamp, 1965 * Knoll, Jumbo Table, 1965 * Fontana Arte, Parola Lamps, 1980 * Fontana Arte, Tavalo con Route, 1980 * Fontana Arte, Tour, 1993 * Gaecolor Vase, 2005 * Olivetti Showroom in Paris, 1965 * Musee d'Orsay, 1980–1986 * National Museum of Modern Art at the
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
in Paris, 1982–1985 *
Palazzo Grassi Palazzo Grassi (also known as the Palazzo Grassi-Stucky) is a building in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice ( Italy), between the Palazzo Moro Lin and the campo San Samuele. History First owners During the 16th ce ...
Renovation, 1985–1993 * National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) Restoration, 1990 * Villa at
Torrecchia Vecchia Torrecchia Vecchia is a private estate of over 1500 acres located in Cisterna di Latina, Lazio, Italy, which may be visited by permission. It contains over 625 acres of woodland, was recognized as a Natural Monument in 2007, and contains notable ...
, c. 1991 * Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco, 2003 * Palazzo Branciforte, Palermo


Death and legacy

Aulenti died in
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has ...
on 31 October 2012, just weeks prior to her 85th birthday. She was suffering from chronic illness and made her last public appearance on 16 October, when she received the career prize at the Milan Triennale. Aulenti is commemorated in Milan by the in December 2012, soon after her death. A portion of Aulenti's papers, drawings, and designs including the design drawings for the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California are collected at International Archive of Women in Architecture in Newman Library, Virginia Tech.


Awards

* At the 1964 Milan Triennial, Aulenti won the Grand International Prize for her piece in the Italian Pavilion. Her piece was a room with mirrored walls with cutout silhouettes of women inspired by
Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...
. It was entitled "Arrivo al Mare". She also served on the Executive Board for the Triennial from 1977- 1980. In 1991, she was awarded the prestigious
Praemium Imperiale Prince Takamatsu The Praemium Imperiale ( ja, 高松宮殿下記念世界文化賞, Takamatsu-no-miya Denka Kinen Sekai Bunka-shō, World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu) is an international art prize inaugura ...
. * Ubi Prize for Stage Design, Milan, 1980 * Architecture Medal, Academie d' Architecture, Paris, 1983 * Josef Hoffmann Prize, Hochschule fur Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 1984 * Chevalier de la Legion d' Honneur, France, 1987 * Commandeur, Order des Artes et Letters, France, 1987 * Honorary Dean of Architecture, Merchandise Mart of Chicago, 1988 * Accademico Nazionale, Accademia di San Luca, Rome, 1988 * Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (6 december 1995)


Publications (selected)

* Aulenti and others, ''Una Nova Scuola de Base'', Milan, 1973 * Aulenti, Franco Quadri and Luca Renconi, ''Il Laboratorio di Prato'', Milan, 1981 * Aulenti and others, ''Il Quartetto delta Maledizione'', Milan, 1985 * Aulenti and others, ''Progetto Bicocca'', Milan, 1986 * Aulenti, ''Gae Aulenti'', New York, 1997


Quotes

* "There are plenty of other talented female architects, but most of them seem to link up with men...I've always worked for myself, and it's been quite and education. Women in architecture must not think of themselves as a minority, because the minute you do, you become paralyzed. It is important to never create the problem." – Aulenti quoted in The Guardian's recent obituary. * "Advice to whoever asks me how to make a home is to not have anything, just a few shelves for books, some pillows to sit on. And then, to take a stand against the ephemeral, against passing trends...and to return to lasting values." – Aulenti to Vogue * "I am convinced that architecture is tied to the polis, it is an art of the city, of the foundation, and as such it is necessarily related and conditioned by the context in which it is born. Place, time, and culture create that architecture, instead of another." – Aulenti in Margherita Petranzan, Gae Aulenti, Rizzoli Skira, Milan, 2002 * "It's not possible to define a style in my work. If you're designing an airport, then airplanes are important. It's no more complicated designing a museum. I prefer museums for my personal passion – the art." – Aulenti quoted in The Times * "The conscious principle in this design has been to achieve forms that could create experiences, and that could at the same time welcome everyone's experiences with the serenity of an effortless development." – Aulenti * "When you're criticized for something, it's best to wait two or three years and see." – Aulenti *"What is more real and tangible within an artificial space than brick?" - Aulenti *"Raggi: Has the fact that you are a woman been a crucial influence in your work:" Aulenti: Yes." – Aulenti in interview with Franco Raggi, "From a Great Desire to Build a City" published in ''Modo,'' no. 21, 1979.


References


Further reading

* Muriel Emmanuel. Contemporary Architects. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980. . NA680.C625. p 53. * Ruth A Peltason. 100 Contemporary Architects. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers. . NA2700.L26. p 24. *"Design & Art: Gae Aulenti." Design & Art: Products. Web. 21 Nov. 2011. . *Davide Mosconi. "Design Italia '70" Milan 1970. *Nathan H. Shapira, "Design Processes Olivetti 1908–1978". Los Angeles, 1979. *Vittorio Gregotti, Emilio Battisti, Franco Quadri. "Gae Aulenti" exhibition catalog. Milan 1979. *Erica Brown, "Interior Views" London 1980 *Eric Larrabee, Massimo Vignelli, "Knoll Design", New York 1981. *"Gae Autenti e il Museo d' Orsay" Milan 1987. *Arata Isozaki "International Design Yearbook 1988–89", London 1988. *Marc Gaillard, Oeil Magazine, November 1990. *Jeremy Myerson, "Grande Dame" article in Design Week, 14 October 1994. *"Pillow Talk" article in Design Week, 10 November 1995.


External links

*
Gae Aulenti Archive

Musée d'Orsay Official Website
* Famous Architects. “Gae Aulenti Architect , Biography, Buildings, Projects and Facts.” Accessed October 24, 2021. https://www.famous-architects.org/gae-aulenti/. *“Gae Aulenti : Weekend House for Mrs. Brion, San Michele, Italy, 1974.” GA Houses, no. 171 (July 1, 2020): 67–69. *Rykwert, Joseph, 1926-. “Gae Aulenti’s Milan.” ''Architectural Digest'' 47, no. 1 (January 1, 1990): 92–97. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aulenti, Gae 1927 births 2012 deaths People from Palazzolo dello Stella 20th-century Italian architects Italian interior designers Italian women architects Recipients of the Praemium Imperiale 20th-century Italian women People of Apulian descent People of Calabrian descent People of Campanian descent Italian furniture designers Italian designers Italian industrial designers Designers Olivetti people Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic