Achilles Rizzoli

1896-1981

Achilles Rizzoli’s visionary architectural drawings were only discovered in 1990, some years after his death. The son of Swiss immigrants to America, he led an isolated existence. A lifelong bachelor, he lived at home with his mother until her death, and worked as a technical draftsman in an architect’s office. Prompted by visions of heavenly buildings in the clouds, Rizzoli became God’s architectural assistant and spent the next 42 years designing Neoclassical buildings required in paradise. Naming his utopian world “Y.T.T.E.” (Yield To Total Elation), he included neatly scripted text in his pen, ink and pencil pictures. Many of Rizzoli’s artworks are symbolic representations (“transfigurations”) of his family and neighbors. These works symbolize a metamorphosis of the person following their death, as well as serving as an architectural personification of their essential attributes. Towards the end of his life, Rizzoli began work on “A.C.E.” (Amte’s Celestial Extravaganza), a “new” section of The Bible. All of his drawings are highly detailed, his line tight and controlled. They reveal the influence of several architectural styles, including Roman, Baroque, Art Deco and Art Nouveau, but the overall vision and intensity of the drawing are uniquely Rizzoli’s own. ¹