Vittorio Gregotti, an Italian architect who helped design the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics stadium, died Sunday at the age of 92 after catching the novel coronavirus, Italian media said.
Gregotti died of pneumonia after being hospitalised in Milanhaving contracted COVID-19, the theCorrieredella Sera newspaper and AGI newsagency reported.
He also designed the Merassi stadium in Genoa for the 1990sWorld Cup in Italy, and the Arcimboldi Opera Theatre in Milan, a futuristicstructure built to allow the season to continue while the La Scala underwentrenovation in 2002-2004. Other highlights of a career that also saw him build ahousing district in Shanghai include the Belem cultural centre in Portugal andthe Grand Theatre de Provence in France.
Paying tribute, fellow Italian architect Stefano Boericalled Gregotti a “master of international architecture” who”created the story of our culture”.
“What a great sadness,” he wrote on Facebook.Gregotti’s wife Mariana Mazza has beenhospitalised at the same Milan hospital, Corrieredella Sera said, withoutproviding details on why.