(b Milan, 3 May 1931; d Milan, 4 Sept 1997). Italian architect, teacher, theorist and designer. One of the most influential architects and theorists of his generation, he became known as the exponent of a new rational approach to architecture based on his studies on urban typology. He began studying at the Politecnico di Milano in 1949 and from the beginning was interested in both the practice and theory of architecture. In 1955 he was a delegate to the International Union of Students Congress in Rome and as a consequence had the opportunity to visit Prague and the USSR. At the same time, through his teacher Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Rossi began his long association (1955-64) with the journal Casabella, becoming its editor in 1961. On graduating from the Politecnico (1959), he joined the editorial staff of Il Contemporaneo; he also opened his own office in Milan, completing his first built work (with Leonardo Ferrari), the Villa ai Ronchi, Tuscany, in 1960. In 1963 he began to teach architecture, at first as an assistant to Ludovico Quaroni at the Scuola Urbanistica, Arezzo, then with Carlo Aymonino at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice; in 1965 he joined the architecture faculty at the Politecnico di Milano.

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