Morris Adjmi Architects

Aldo Rossi designed the Teatro Del Mondo for the 1980 Biennale di Venezia. Drawing on the idea of the 16^th century floating theatre, it functioned as a boat, theater, and lighthouse. Comprised of timeless architectural forms that coalesce into a single structure, the project still maintains a distinctly Venetian identity and remained one of Rossi’s favorite projects.

Teatro Del Mondo is both a built form and an idealized one. It is made up of a rectangle topped by an octagonal dome, common throughout Rossi’s drawings and bearing a particularly strong resemblance to the La Conica coffee maker he designed for Alessi. The project anchored at the Punta Della Dogana, a former customs house sited where Venice’s Grand Canal and Giudecca Canal meet. It traveled across the Adriatic Sea to former Venetian colonies before being dismantled.

The exhibition “La Biennale di Venezia 1979-1980: The Theatre of the World ‘singular building’ Tribute to Aldo Rossi " was held in 2010 at a Carnival of Venice collateral event to honor Teatro Del Mondo’s 30th anniversary.