Alice Rawsthorn, photo by Michael Leckie; Stefano Boeri, photo by Delfino Sisto Legnani, DSL Studio

Stefano Boeri on Gae Aulenti's Legacy

October 18 2024

Gae Aulenti's Legacy – episode 5

The exhibition Gae Aulenti (1927 – 2012) is accompanied by a podcast series that explores her impact on architecture and design, and her legacy. The podcast, hosted by British design critic and author, Alice Rawsthorn, traces the evolution of Gae Aulenti through the voices of friends, curators and international architects who knew her personally or through her work. The five episodes focus on different aspects of her relationship with architecture, design, art and performance during the course of her career.

The fifth episode - Stefano Boeri on Gae Aulenti's Legacy - features Alice Rawsthorn in dialogue with Stefano Boeri, architect and urban planner. Boeri, President of Triennale Milano - who had the opportunity to get to know Gae during his childhood, thanks to the friendship between the podcast's protagonist and his mother, Cini Boeri - reflects on the legacy left by Gae Aulenti in the field of architecture and design, with a focus on her lasting impact and unique ability to space her work between architecture, urban space and scenography.

Archive photographs in the exhibition, photo by Alessandro Saletta, DSL Studio

Gae Aulenti square, Milan, photo by Erin Doering, Unsplash

Stefano Boeri

Gae Aulenti was, first of all, an extraordinary scenographer. Gae was always translating her work as a theater scenographer in the other fields

Exhibition view, photo by Alessandro Saletta, DSL Studio

Stefano Boeri, architect and urban planner, is Professor of Urban Planning at Politecnico di Milano and heads the Future City Lab at Tongji University in Shanghai, a post-doctoral research programme that anticipates the mutation of planetary metropolises, from the biodiversity and urban forestry perspective. He has been a visiting professor at several international universities such as Harvard University Graduate School of Design, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio. He is President of the Scientific Committee of Forestami, the urban forestry project in the Milanese metropolitan area. Since 2018 he has been President of Triennale Milano.

Alice Rawsthorn—born in Manchester and based in London—is an award-winning design critic and author of books on design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of the Design Emergency project to investigate design's role as a force for positive change. In all her work, Alice champions design's potential to address complex social, political and ecological challenges.

Credits

Hosted by: Alice Rawsthorn
Recording and sound editing: 731 Lab
Produced by: Triennale Milano
On the occasion of the exhibition: Gae Aulenti (1927-2012)

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