Aurelio Galfetti

Aurelio Galfetti has had a key role as professor, as head of school and as founder of the Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio, USI. His built work has had enormous influence within the culture of architecture and on us as young architects. Galfetti’s buildings describe his continuing belief in the necessary harmony between architecture, social infrastructure and the territory it occupies, both physical and cultural.
For the Biennale Architettura 2018 he has made a film recording a wonderful lecture he gave to students and colleagues, using white chalk drawings on a blackboard, describing both his human values and his architectural philosophy. The lecture describes the design process for his house on a Greek island. Through his chalk sketches, he describes and weaves his earliest experiences of living in a deep valley in Switzerland, and his search for his dream site in an idealised landscape with a big horizon. The house forms a large collective space within the scale of the extended landscape.
For us, this lecture brings together the creative imaginative energy of the practicing architect with the ability to fire the imagination and enthusiasm of students and colleagues.
The simplicity, generosity and openness of his style of presentation represents for us the epitome of how to communicate the true values of architecture.
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