Gae Aulenti

Gae Aulenti (pronounced [ˈɡaːe auˈlɛnti]; 4 December 1927 – 31 October 2012) was a prolific Italian architect, whose work spans industrial and exhibition design, furniture, graphics, stage design, lighting and interior design. She was well known for several large-scale museum projects, including the Musée d'Orsay in Paris (1980–86), the Contemporary Art Gallery at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the restoration of Palazzo Grassi in Venice (1985–86), and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco with HOK (firm) (2000–2003). Aulenti was one of the few women designing in the postwar period in Italy, where Italian designers sought to make meaningful connections to production principles beyond Italy. This avant-guarde design movement blossomed into an entirely new type of Italian architecture, one full of imaginary utopias leaving standardization to the past.

Aulenti's deep involvement in the Milan design scene of the 1950s and 1960s formed her into an architect respected for her analytical abilities to navigate metropolitan complexity no matter the medium. Her conceptual development can be followed in the design magazine Casabella, to which she contributed regularly.

Her contemporaries were Vittorio Gregotti, Giancarlo de Carlo and Aldo Rossi.

Born as Gaetana Aulenti, a native of Palazzolo dello Stella (Friuli), Gaetana Aulenti (Gae, as she was known, is pronounced “guy”) studied to be an architect at the Milan School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University, and graduated in 1954 as one of two women in a class of 20. She grew up playing the piano and reading books.

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