Aulenti attended a visual arts high-school in Florence; however, during World War II, she was compelled to return to Biella where she continued her studies privately.

[18] Although Aulenti initially studied visual arts, she saw an opportunity to contribute to the rebuilding of Italy and in 1948 she enrolled in the architectural program at the Polytechnic University of Milan.

[20][21] Milan was attractive to students, like Aulenti, because it had been an open city during World War II and was rich with culture and intellectual life.

[24][25] The post-war reconstruction of Milan (part of the Italian economic miracle) involved large architectural and urban design projects.

Aulenti said,I am convinced that architecture is tied to the polis, it is an art of the city, of the foundation, and as such it is necessarily related and conditioned by the context in which it is born.

[8][5][28] Neo-liberty posited that there is a continuity between historical and modern architectural styles rather than an end of one and the beginning of another and that elements from the past can be used to enhance contemporary design.

[30][31]Aulenti's interpretation of neo-liberty is exemplified in her first furniture piece, the Sgarsul chair (1962), crafted from bent beech wood with a slung leather seat containing soft polyurethane padding.

The collection comprised chairs, a table, an adjustable lamp, a sofa, a sun lounger, and a bench, all manufactured from tubular cold-formed steel by the Poltronova furniture company.

[44][33] Office machines, such as typewriters, were displayed on structures of white laminate steps accented by radiating spokes of dark polished wood.

This design drew inspiration from the steps of a piazza and the repeating triangular patterns found in traditional African arts and crafts.

[48][14] Aulenti collaborated with the French fashion house Louis Vuitton to design a watch accompanied by a matching pen and silk scarf.

[50][54] Aulenti successfully advocated for changes to the ACT design, which the curators believed was overly tied to neo-classical aesthetics and excessively ornate.

[50] In the final plan, however, some features of the Gare d'Orsay were preserved, including the mansard roof, an ornate art nouveau clock, large busts of Mercury and the rose patterned tiles covering the ceiling.

On the ground floor, the main corridor was re-aligned to the long axis of the building and set on a gentle slope to form a sculpture garden.

[56][57] Natural light enters the building from the original large, glass, barrel-vault ceiling, windows facing the Rue de Lille and from new oculi.

[58] Charles Jencks, cultural theorist and architectural historian, described the Musée d'Orsay as an example of a "postmodern museum", where there is tension due to the past needing to exist in the present and the artistic in the academic.

Overhead, the wide barrel vault of the old station spreads a generous light that pulls one gently up the progression of French art.

[8] The Centre Pompidou, the home of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, was built between 1972 and 1977 to a plan by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.

[65][66] Aulenti was engaged to redesign the portion of the Musée occupying the fourth floor of the center, to create modular spaces better suited for smaller exhibitions, and to reduce the amount of natural light impacting the artworks.

[70][65] The Musée itself owns a number of pieces from Aulenti's design career, from her 1964 April stainless steel and brown leather folding chair to its 2008 redesign in bright yellow toile vela (outdoor fabric).

[76] The exhibit embodied Aulenti's aptitude for stage design, featuring a salmon-pink sand dune as a set for eight sarcophagi and a large pool for model ships.

[78] As part of a design team including Enric Steegman and Josep Benedito, between 1985 and 1992, Aulenti refurbished the Saló Oval (the main hall) and consolidated two temporary exhibition rooms for the 1992 Summer Olympics.

[83] Aulenti's other projects included the conversion of Scuderie del Quirinale, Quirinal Palace, Rome to an exhibition space for the 2000 Great Jubilee, the redesigning of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2003), the restoration of the Palazzo Branciforte in Palermo, Sicily (2007) and the expansion of the Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi (Umbria International Airport) for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy (2011).

[88] Together, they staged 16 productions including, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Calderón, Euripide's Le Baccanti, and Hugo von Hofmannsthall's La Torre.

The sound is lost in the flies and in the first rows, at least, the voices seem thin, without force or resonance ... unreal ... which is serious in a work with such brief tableaux, where the listener must feel the physical presence of the characters from the outset.

[97] From their position on the stage, video operators filmed the performance and in real time, broadcast the recordings, such as close-ups of the singers, onto the monitors.

[101] Aulenti also created the stage designs for Elektra by Richard Strauss in Milan (1984) and The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen in Genoa.

In this work, Aulenti installed a large mirrored room with multiple, life-sized, colour-sketched cut-outs of women in simple robes, standing under a ceiling of slung fabric strips.

[23] Ten days after her death, Aulenti's major work to expand the Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi – Umbria International Airport was inaugurated.

[111] Drawings, photographic material and design models under plexiglass by Aulenti are held by Sistema Informativo Unificato per le Soprintendenze Archivistiche (SIUSA).