Vittorio Gregotti (10 August 1927 – 15 March 2020) was an Italian architect, born in

Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is ...

. He was seen as both a member of the Neo-Avant Garde and a key figure in 1970s Postmodernism.

Biography

Gregotti was born in

, in the Italian

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, and attended the

Politecnico di Milano The Polytechnic University of Milan () is the largest technical university in Italy, with about 42,000 students. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and higher education courses in engineering, architecture and design. Founded in 186 ...

. He worked as a contributor to ''

Casabella ''Casabella'' is a monthly Italian architectural and product design magazine with a focus on modern, radical design and architecture. It includes interviews with the world's most prominent architects. History and profile Casabella was founded i ...

'', an architectural magazine, and was its

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

from 1955 to 1963. Gregotti founded his own studio, Gregotti Associati International, in 1974 but also lectured on

architectural theory Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and curated several exhibits in Italy. His studio has designed several important sports venues and cultural buildings, such as the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, the

Belém Cultural Center The Belém Cultural Center ( pt, Centro Cultural de Belém), is a complex of artistic venues located in Belém in the city of Lisbon. It is the largest building with cultural facilities in Portugal, with over of usable space. The centre was ini ...

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, the Arcimboldi Opera Theater 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 h ...

and several university campuses, including that of the

University of Calabria The University of Calabria ( it, Università della Calabria, UNICAL) is a state-run university in Italy. Located in Arcavacata, a hamlet of Rende and a suburb of Cosenza, the university was founded in 1972. Among its founders there were Beniamino ...

. His studio also designed Pujiang New Town in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, China, a

new town New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

with an Italian architectural theme. In 2012, he wrote an article for ''STUDIO Architecture and Urbanism magazine'' published on its issue#02 Original, edited by Romolo Calabrese. Gregotti was a member of the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). ...

. His 1996 book ''Inside Architecture'' was recommended by English architect

Alan Colquhoun Alan Harold Colquhoun (27 June 1921 – 13 December 2012) was an English architect, historian, critic and teacher. Biography Colquhoun was born in Eton, Buckinghamshire on 27 June 1921 and attended Bradfield School. He went on to study architect ...

as having "an unusual honesty and philosophical depth of thought". Gregotti died of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on 15 March 2020, aged 92. Belém Cultural Center 2

Books

*''Inside Architecture'', (The MIT Press, 1996) *''Architecture, Means and Ends'' translated by Lydia Cochrane (University of Chicago Press, 2010)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gregotti, Vittorio 1927 births 2020 deaths People from Novara 20th-century Italian architects 21st-century Italian architects Polytechnic University of Milan alumni Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Casabella editors Architects from Milan Members of the Académie d'architecture Modernist architects Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Lombardy Compasso d'Oro Award recipients