Housing Project, Setubal, Portugal (Elevation)
Aldo Rossi
Italian, 1931–1997
J. da Nobrega
Italian, born 1945
J. Charters
Italian, born 1945
1976
Aldo Rossi's tracing-paper elevation, drawn in colored pencil, graphite, and felt-tipped pen, presents a long, repetitive housing block punctuated by tower-like pavilions to propose a civic, typological approach to mass housing.
What hits you first is the theatrical horizontality: broad bands of red 'roofs' stretched across the page, rows of small rhythmic windows, a sequence of green tower elements with flags and a lone chimney that together read like an elongated, almost ceremonial cityscape, while faint working sketches and notes make the image feel like a design in progress.
The drawing encapsulates Rossi’s influential belief in architectural typology and collective memory, showing how measured, archetypal forms and monuments could be reintroduced into contemporary housing and into late 20th‑century architectural theory.
Medium
Colored pencil, graphite, and felt-tipped pen on tracing paper
Dimensions
18 x 57 1/2" (45.7 x 146.1 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation
Accession
1285.2000
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
