Wilshire Center

The noted Italian architect Aldo Rossi makes Post-Modern buildings that often look like fantasy sets for “The Taming of the Shrew” mixed with the elegiac memories of Giorgio de Chirico. Rossi also draws. A couple of dozen etchings and finished studies rework traditional piazza, dome, campanile and loggia into a whimsical world of shifting perspectives and visual amusement.

Although some are based on actual projects, such as the new school of architecture at the University of Miami, all have an expressive life of their own.

On present sketchy evidence, Rossi doesn’t appear to be one of those aesthetic rarities like Le Corbusier--an authentically ambidextrous artist/architect. All the same, Rossi combines dreaminess and detachment in images--like one rendered on top of a Wall Street Journal market page--that give a whiff of Saul Steinberg’s graphic wit. (Kirsten Kiser Gallery, 964 N. La Brea Ave., to Saturday.)