To the death of Gae Aulenti

The seminal work of the Italian architect is the postmodern transformation of the Paris railway station Gare d´Orsay into a museum with a permanent collection of French masters from the second half of the 19th century. With this work, completed in the mid-1980s, she gained international attention and immediately received further commissions for museum reconstructions. From 1985 to 1992, she transformed the Montjuic Palace in Barcelona into the Catalan National Art Museum. For her work, she received the highest Japanese award, the Praemium Imperiale, in 1991, becoming the first woman to do so.
Gaetana Aulenti was born in 1927 in Palazzolo dello Stella near Udine. After graduating in architecture from the Milan Polytechnic in 1954, she dedicated herself not only to architectural practice but also to art, design, and scenography. In the following years, from 1955 to 1965, she worked as a graphic designer and editor for the prestigious magazine Casabella. In the 1960s, she served as a researcher at architectural universities in Milan and Venice.
Her endless list of works places her among the most significant and versatile Italian artists of the second half of the 20th century. With an enormous sensitivity, she was able to work on the reconstructions of historical buildings. She designed exhibition displays for the Paris Centre Pompidou, the Venetian Palazzo Grassi, and companies such as Christian Dior and Olivetti. For Milan's La Scala and Vienna's Staatsoper, she designed stage sets.
Gae Aulenti passed away in Milan on November 1, 2012, at the age of 84.