An Introduction to Aldo Rossi’s “Autobiographical Notes, Etc.”

Aldo Rossi’s manuscript, titled “Autobiographical Notes, Etc.” and dated December 1971, is held with his papers in the special collections of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Writing on both recto and verso sides of seven small sheets of laid paper, the author takes stock of his life at age forty. In the manuscript, Rossi reexamines some fundamental moments in his development as an architect. In particular, both his encounter with Ernesto Nathan Rogers, who had invited him to join the editorial staff of the journal Casabella continuità when Rossi was just over twenty years old, and his enduring friendship with Carlo Aymonino mattered more to his development than his years as a student and instructor at the Politecnico di Milano. The urgency behind Rossi’s manuscript is found in a series of events from 1971, two of which were dramatic: a serious automobile accident and his suspension from university teaching for political reasons. At the end of this bitter year, he felt the need to rethink the choices that he had made up to that point. The result was a wide-ranging confession that constitutes a direct precursor to the publication, ten years later, of his book A Scientific Autobiography (1982).