Gaetana Aulenti, or Gae as everyone calls her, was born in Udine in 1927. She graduated in 1953 from the Polytechnic of Milan, then a hotbed of new ideas for architecture, all about taking the values of the past and reshaping the existing context. This blossomed into the Neoliberty movement, which Aulenti took up in opposition to rationalism.
Her many achievements include the design of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Palazzo Grassi, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the exhibition design of the National Museum of Modern Art of the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, the design of Piazzale Cadorna in Milan, the Catalan Art Museum of Barcelona, and the former Scuderie del Quirinale.
