), is one of Italy's most important architects. Much influenced by Ludwig Hilberseimer

Ludwig Hilberseimer

Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer was a German architect and urban planner best known for his ties to the Bauhaus and to Mies van der Rohe, as well as for his work in urban planning at Armour Institute of Technology , in Chicago, Illinois.-Life:Hilberseimer studied architecture at the Karlsruhe Technical...

, Heinrich Tessenow

Heinrich Tessenow

Heinrich Tessenow was a German architect, professor, and urban planner active in the Weimar era.-Biography:...

 and Adolf Loos

Adolf Loos

Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos was a Moravian-born Austro-Hungarian architect. He was influential in European Modern architecture, and in his essay Ornament and Crime he repudiated the florid style of the Vienna Secession, the Austrian version of Art Nouveau...

, his extremely formal work is predicated on absolute simplicity, clarity, and honesty without ingratiation, rhetoric, or spectacular shape-making; it refers to historical archetypes of form and space and has a strong concern with the making of urban space. For these reasons Grassi is a non-conformist and a critic of conventional mainstream architecture.

Career

Grassi studied architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 at the Politecnico di Milano university where he graduated in 1960. He worked for the magazine Casabella-continuità for 3 years until 1964 and has been professor at the Politecnico di Milano and other universities since 1965. Grassi is a prolific writer and theorist, having most notably written The Logical Construction of Architecture (1967), Architecture as a Craft (1979) and other influential works.
His designs incorporate a sensitivity to classical and neo-classical architecture (Alberti, Schinkel) but are at the same time deeply influenced by the modern movement

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, especially in Germany and Austria. Grassi's trademarks are his use of exposed brick in most of his buildings as well as square windows. In his writings, he refers to the socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 architects of the 1920s as well as references to selected public buildings and public spaces as his guidelines. His works have been extensively published in the top international architecture magazines.

Buildings and projects

• Municipal centre of the Visconteo Castle of Abbiategrasso
  Abbiategrasso
  Abbiategrasso is a comune and town in the province of Milan, Italian region of Lombardy, situated in the Po valley approximately 22 km from Milan and 38 km from Pavia.- History :The town dates from Roman times...
  
   (1970)
• Student house, University of Chieti
  University of Chieti
  The G. d'Annunzio University is a university located in Chieti and Pescara, Italy. It was founded in 1960 and is organized in 11 Faculties. Student enrollment at the University is currently in excess of 23,000.-History:...
  
   (1976)
• Prinz-Albrecht-Palais
  Prinz-Albrecht-Palais
  The Prinz-Albrecht-Palais was a large stately mansion or a smaller palace in Berlin Friedrichstadt. It was located on Wilhelmstraße 102, opposite the western end of Kochstraße.-History:...
  
  , Berlin
  Berlin
  Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
  
   (1984) (see: Niederkirchnerstraße)
• Roman theatre
  Roman theatre (structure)
  The characteristics of Roman to those of the earlier Greek theatres due in large part to its influence on the Roman triumvir Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Much of the architectural influence on the Romans came from the Greeks, and theatre structural design was no different from other buildings...
  
   of Sagunto
  Sagunto
  Sagunto or Sagunt is an ancient city in Eastern Spain, in the modern fertile comarca of Camp de Morvedre in the province of Valencia. It is located in a hilly site, c. 30 km north of Valencia, close to the Costa del Azahar on the Mediterranean Sea...
  
   (1985)
• Building complex at Potsdamer Platz
  Potsdamer Platz
  Potsdamer Platz is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag , and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park...
  
  , Berlin
  Berlin
  Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
  
  (1993)

Resource material

Grassi, Giorgio. 1988. Architettura, lingua morta = Architecture, dead language. Quaderni di Lotus, 9. Milano: Electa.

Grassi, Giorgio, Pilar Insausti, and Tito Llopis. 1994. Giorgio Grassi: obras y proyectos 1962-1993 : [exposición] 28 enero-20 marzo 1994. [Milan]: Electa.