Paolo Portoghesi, the Italian architect and theorist whose Strada Novissima at the 1980 Venice Biennale heralded the ascendance of Postmodernism in architecture, died Tuesday at his home in Calcata, north of Rome. He was 92.

In addition to his work at the Biennale—first as the inaugural architecture curator from 1979 to 1982 and then as president from 1983 to 1992—Portoghesi designed a number of notable buildings, wrote extensively on historical and contemporary subjects, edited several major Italian publications, and taught generations of students. He was an “unusual character in the panorama of 20th-century architecture,” says Léa-Catherine Szacka, who is coauthoring a book on Portoghesi that will be published this fall. “He was a great mediator and operated with a charm and suavity remembered by many.”