Friday 9 oct. Emanuele Trevi: The Real City. Writing about Rome from War to Boom

At Work: Garofalo Miura Architetti

During our visit to GMA, we spoke about the convergence of architectural theory and practice. Francesco explained his desire to “close the gap between statements in the classroom and those in the real world.” He criticized the notion that designers need to slip in their ideas under the nose of strict clients.

Their work seems to communicate on two levels; it responds to the world of academia and the world of reality. Maybe this is a result of their partnership, which combines a theoretical mind with a pragmatic one.

-Tim

One idea I felt was suggested by Francesco's discussion was that, within the world of professional practice, theory could be seen simply as a design tool - one of many at an architect's disposal. It seems that the final product is the primary focus in the majority of real world projects, rather than the specific route the architect took to get there. It isn't important how or why the project looks the way it does, as long as the forms are seductive to a competition jury, and the spaces are enjoyed by its inhabitants. Successful buildings are often (but not necessarily) the result of a solid theoretical development. A well developed conceptual strategy  is most important in that it gives the architect a better chance at producing a desirable final product. Process still maters, however theory is not the only ingredient in the delicious stew that is design. Perhaps our training should include more guidance of aesthetic means of decision making and other generative tools.

-Benn

 

The Model City itinerary

1 – Palazzo dei Congressi site, (Massimiliano Fuksas, under construction)
2 – Museo Pigorini, (Brusa, G. Cancellotti, E. Montuori, A. Scalpelli) 1938-43
3 – Museo della Civiltà Romana, (Aschieri, Bernardini, Pascoletti, Presutti) 1938-52
4 – Palazzo dei Congressi, (Libera) 1937-52
5 – Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, (Guerrini, La Padula, Romano) 1938-43
6 – Post Office (Banfi, Belgioioso, Peressutti, Rogers), 1939-1940
7 – Palazzo dello sport (Nervi, Piacentini) 1956-60
8 – Nuova Centralità “Torraccio” (masterplan Purini, under construction)
9 – Laurentino 38 (Barucci), 1975-79

This photo was taken from a terrace of the Palazzo dei Congressi where performances can take place with the city as the background. I saw the idea of the city as the theatrical landscape (backdrop) to be very interesting. The city is the place where new scenes (new public interventions, new architecture, future urban plans of development) are enacted, tested, and played out. The suspense of testing interventions within the urban fabric never ends because the result of how a project will be utilized can never fully be predetermined only strongly suggested.

-Andreka
Above: Our profs in comparison to the Palazzo Della Civilita Italiana - looks smaller than it is. The grandeur of the EUR was impressive. At the end of our walk, I returned to italian class a bit dazed, and my teacher asked what I had thought. When I told her I was a bit captivated by the drama of the place (or blurted out that I liked it, in weak italian), she told me scornfully how she had lived in the EUR and how terrible it had been (she shuddered). Perhaps she lived towards the Laurentino side of things. Perhaps the scale of the EUR, as a whole, could be overwhelming to the average resident - it certainly wasnt designed with that perspective in mind, as in Garbatella. However for the tourist, museum goer, dermatoligist, etc. the immense axiallity, consistensy and symmetrey of the place serve as quite the imperial backdrop for daily activities.
-Travis

I thought that the Laurentino housing development was an excellent counterpoint to the EUR. We see in both the incredible power of design—the ability for architecture to shape and respond to the lives of inhabitants. Each project addresses prevailing urban issues such as density, public space, and circulation, but they do so in different ways. The implementation of these designs and their success/failure in a modern context provides an invaluable precedent for new architects who often tackle the same problems.

Many in our group felt that the EUR was a success (perhaps others could elaborate?). When we stood on the road looking at the bridges of Laurentino, however, everyone understood that the concept there had failed. Somehow the research, planning, and design of Barucci came to a relatively fruitless end. Before using 20/20 hindsight to explain the failure, I think it is valuable to identify why it may have been a success. The project strives to create communities; it makes green space accessible; it promotes local commerce; and it prioritizes pedestrian traffic while accommodating the car.

By all measures this is a success! It would be showered with praise by design critics at Cornell. But, then again, what are our value-scales at Cornell, what are they throughout architecture academia at large? Do they correspond to reality? How much can projects ever be resolved in the design process, or must they always be tested under worldly pressures… in the largest laboratory available?

-Tim

The Square Colosseum in its current state of renovation epitomizes the difference between theoretical intention and actual use within less successful portions of the EUR. There is quite literally a dialog between the bold, monumental inscription at the top of the structure, and the graffiti scrawled across a concrete barrier that denies any entrance to the inhabited space at the foot of the structure.

-Benn

With the juxtaposition of the commercial bridge in Venice (Ponte di Rialto) and the bridge housing project in Rome (Laurentino housing development) I was wondering what makes “good” or “bad” bad design, and how much the designer can actually control. As context change, a bridge with retail that used to be for the common person living in Venice now becomes a tourist trap and a hotspot of activity. While in the bridges social hosing, the pools of isolated development could not support store activity, and the hazard of these spaces overtook their ultimate need.

-Sheryl

.

.

.

Laurentino was sketched out in the 70s as a futuristic urban utopia. Today it's a highway to nowhere, and the pedestrian bridges have been taken over by squatters. This description as to why it has failed in function makes total sense:

The site plan makes a convincing diagram, however, there seems to be little organizational connection with the existing community. Entrance past the paired slabs is a passage through a parking area and, once reached, the plaza lacks activity, definition, and the facilities needed to make it truly a central community space. The idea of the extended stepped slabs with parking to one side and a landscaped open space to the other, also makes a good diagram but this space is too big, poorly defined and, as a result, is underused. These spaces are unkempt and are not well equipped or maintained. […] The absence of a viable shopping environment results in the reality of closed shop fronts, graffiti, a generally trashed, unkempt ambience, and loss of viable pedestrian activity. It may be that the adaptations that were made to the original legge 167 housing standards, changes made to reach a more realistic correspondence between building cost and affordable financing have resulted in a loss of the amenities that no community can be without. A reoccurring pattern in many of these developments is the building of incomplete communities where public facilities are late in coming or are never funded at all for sites, that at least when they are first built, are physically and spiritually detached from an existing infrastructure of shopping, schools, and transportation.

Other incomplete communities could include Testaccio in its beginning stages, or one of Aldo Rossi’s first projects, Gallaratese (1969-1974), a housing complex on the outskirts of Milan...also likened to a beached whale…

mia+ariane

In context: Pippo Ciorra: Ludovico Quaroni and the Roman School

For our first lecture of the semester, guest speaker Pippo Ciorra delivers a beautiful talk regarding the work of architect Ludovico Quaroni and his influence on post-war Italian architecture. Among the topics discussed were:

The Italian struggle between modernism and classicism. An issue of language and identity.

Building as city, city as building. The flexibility of scale in design.

Bigness, or the idea that one architectural gesture can affect or change a landscape.

Monumentality as the ultimate architectural desire.

Looking forward to more talks!

.

.

.

.

.

"THERE IS A VERY SMALL DISTANCE BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND POLITICS."

twiggy. miniskirt. archigram. kubrick. zola. superstudio. 

...all interested in the mechanism of future, but still humanist!

after all, the supercity is a machine, not a dream....

-mia+ariane

11th Venice Architecture Biennale

venice biennale 2008 from mia ovcina on Vimeo.

Biennale Architecture Out There: Architecture Beyond Building
by Aaron Betsky

"The 11th Architecture Biennale, entitled Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, points out what should be an obvious fact: architecture is not building. Buildings are objects and the act of building leads to such objects, but architecture is something else. It is the way we think and talk about buildings, how we represent them, how we build them. This is architecture. More generally, architecture is a way of representing, shaping and perhaps even offering critical alternatives to the human-made environment. In this world it is not enough to keep the rain out, create room for office cubicles, or fit into a context that either changes continually or becomes artificially frozen."

http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/

ROMA interrotta

1978 to 2008: “Thirty years later the Biennale di Venezia reopens the game, expanding the horizon from the urban to the metropolitan: the creative itinerary rediscovers imagination.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

images: Costantino Dardi

“In order to discover new scenarios by which we might be able to be at home in the sprawl of what was once the city and is now a confused urban field, we must uncover and rethink the past out of which it seemingly inexorably arose...

How can we live with the landscapes time and economic forces have given us? First of all by seeing and knowing them, and that means being able to mirror and map them in those forms and compositions proper to architecture. Roma Interotta showed how that could be done. Now we must continue the work.”

~Aaron Betsky

mia+ariane

The Green City itinerary

1 – Piazza Venezia / Via del Mare, Urban renovation 1885-1911 / 1926-32

2 – Circo Massimo, Fascist Temporary Exhibitions 1937-1939

3 – Passeggiata Archeologica, Archeological Park 1908-1914

4 – Caracalla Baths, Proposal for the Rebuilding of the Baths (Aldo Rossi) 1978

5 – Garbatella District, 1920-1934 (G. Giovannoni, M. Piacentini, I. Sabbatini and others)

6 – Mercati Generali at Via Ostiense, (food market), 1913-1924 (E. Saffi) Redevelopment with commerical-leisure-cultural facilities (2000-10 (OMA/Rem Koolhaas)

7 – Post Office at via Marmorata,1933-1935 (Adalberto Libera, Mario De Renzi)

.

.

.

garbatella: GARDEN CITY

[7:59:32 PM] mia ovcina says: the green city itinerary introduced a couple of main themes for the class...

[8:00:17 PM] ariane.pm says: so, the themes seem to be
1) how existing projects that are kept intact to idolize a certain time period have to be integrated into a new landscape and
2) the city within the city...
[8:03:36 PM] mia ovcina says: with a dash of propaganda, italian political agendas, and libera
[8:10:33 PM] ariane.pm says: yes. maybe we can address rome as disneyland to begin with
[8:13:53 PM] mia ovcina says: disneyROMA! but aside from tourists, and the obvious attractions, there IS a bit more history/context here...
[8:14:07 PM] ariane.pm says: for example, mussolini planting the pine trees at largo argentina because he thought they were reminiscent of ancient columns and wanted to produce an [artificially] picturesque landscape. since he arbitrarily froze all the layers of rome and pulled out the classical layer as THE one to idolize and reference.
[8:14:38 PM] ariane.pm says: or all the fake paving going on around the forum
[8:14:53 PM] ariane.pm says: and the separation of the forum from the city in the first place!
[8:16:05 PM] ariane.pm says: roma: adventure park.
[8:16:19 PM] mia ovcina says: fine. but there's more...
[8:16:39 PM] mia ovcina says: some of the ruins have been succesfully repurposed.
[8:17:42 PM] ariane.pm says: those old pieces of rubble, waiting for the new idea of the city....
[8:18:22 PM] mia ovcina says: shut up. For example, Circo Massimo/Passeggiata Archeologica... they have modern uses...
[8:19:11 PM] ariane.pm says: yes. a prime example of site value!!
[8:21:04 PM] ariane.pm says: and circo massimo is still being used as a center for spectacle. just as in the good ol' days...
[8:21:23 PM] mia ovcina says: precisely!
[8:26:10 PM] mia ovcina says: ...back to the city, there's also the theme of modern developments (mostly in the periphery) and the various approaches/ideologies as to how rome should expand...
[8:42:07 PM] ariane.pm says: with Garbatella?
[8:58:39 PM] mia ovcina says: yeah. Garbatella...
[9:33:27 PM] ariane.pm says: well. a lot people were forced to leave the city center when it was destroyed...like when Mussolini elimated that neighborhood (Alessandrino) for the construction of the Via dei Fori Imperiali, or before that when the Altare della Patria was inaugurated...
[9:35:11 PM] ariane.pm says: and they were relocated to a new neighborhood, outside the city walls, and were obliged to reinvent a language for themselves.
[9:38:06 PM] mia ovcina says: ironic that the invented language of many of these developments is one that attempts to emulate the city, the place the residents were expelled from, instead of creating something new... something better...
[9:39:42 PM] ariane.pm says: well, they did try to create something better--the garden city--actually an ancient concept in the end...but they had to have a new identity for themselves since they were so detached from and not really part of rome anymore.
[9:42:42 PM] ariane.pm says: so they built their own little square and little houses with shared gardens...it was the fascists that ruined it!! the first movement in 1920 was smaller, more traditional, then in 1934 that idea was done away with and the monumentalization began...silly barochetto...

(ugly fascist barochetto building)
[9:43:26 PM] mia ovcina says: it's true, but how much of it was built by 'them' vs. imposed on them by the state? i'm not convinced...
[9:43:42 PM] ariane.pm says: who is them?
[9:43:52 PM] mia ovcina says: them being the people...
[9:44:00 PM] mia ovcina says: the expelled ones
[9:44:26 PM] mia ovcina says: and now they get koolhaas and starchitecture, do they really need it?
[9:46:03 PM] ariane.pm says: ugh. when i say they, i mean gustavo giovanoni, architectural theorist and founder of the architecture school of rome, who was the 1920 planner. he wanted something nice for them. the people were actors in his play. they dealt with his stage props. but they did ok, they built a community feeling.
[9:46:31 PM] ariane.pm says: koolhaas is just trying to make his city of youth...
[9:47:10 PM] ariane.pm says: a connection between the industrial center of garbatella and universita roma tre
[9:47:09 PM] mia ovcina says: "the people were actors in his play." that's what i'm saying. it's not real...
[9:47:37 PM] ariane.pm says: what is your point? live something long enough, make it a reality.
[9:48:12 PM] ariane.pm says: ok we are done here.
[9:48:16 PM] mia ovcina says: fine
[9:48:19 PM] ariane.pm says: it worked is all.
[9:48:42 PM] mia ovcina says: but did it really?
[9:48:27 PM] ariane.pm says: people want to live there now.
[9:48:35 PM] ariane.pm says: gabriele wants to live there.

[9:48:57 PM] mia ovcina says: it's a constructed lie.
[9:49:05 PM] ariane.pm says: the end.

itopia

Building the Public City.Theory and Practice in contemporary Italian Architecture

A desire to construct the public realm permeates the visions and the concrete experiences of contemporary Italian architecture. This desire, deeply rooted in the past, from the roman basilicas to the piano sistino, has generated various attempts to design and build the idea of a truly public city: since the beginning of the XX century architecture has been the tool to shape not only the space of the contemporary city, but also the identities of the communities inhabiting it.
As a mean to build the public city, architecture has been therefore a public activity in itself, closely connected to the political and cultural context, in which it has found unique conditions to make real some visions and theories about the contemporary city.
Rooted in the specificity of Italian situation, since modernity this idea of a public city has generated all over Italy several powerful - as much as controversial - experiments. Rome, in particular, due to its peculiar political and social situation, has been an exceptional ground for some of the most radical ones: not only new buildings but visions of a different society in the form of concrete and specific architectural and urban projects.
The Architecture Theory course at Cornell will therefore focus on this main issue of Italian modern and contemporary architecture, opening the theory field to the dialogue with concrete experiences, and with the multiple relationships that this kind of public architecture establishes with the cultural context. “Getting out” could be the keyword of this program structured in three main sections of exchanges between theory and reality, practice and society.


on site : four “open-air” lessons will give the opportunity to explore the city of Rome following some major issues, and visiting some outstanding examples of the modern city - from the garden city model of the Garbatella, to the neorealismo of the Tuscolano, to the radical piece of Laurentino 38 – compared with some of the most recent, celebrated projects.

at work: four meetings in some significant architecture offices in Rome will actualize these issues concerning the construction of the public city in the actual practices and dynamics of transformation on the city field.

in context: four speakers will be invited to trace a profile of Italian architecture seen from the intense relationships established with the modern and contemporary culture, each time focusing on the peculiar dialectics between architecture and history, literature, urbanism and politics.

These series of lectures will be preceded by a joint lecture to introduce the program and to put in perspective all the following themes and subjects .
As an optional integration to this program there could be some on site and at work sessions to be held during the field trips all over Italy, in order to explore some contemporary architectures and to meet some interesting architectural practices outside of Rome.

---

Program

fri 29 aug - Intro
Italy/Rome: the Public realm between Architecture and the City (Alberto Iacovoni and Gabriele Mastrigli - Palazzo Lazzaroni)

ven 5 sep - On site
The Green City - Circo Massimo/Park of Caracalla Baths, Garbatella (the collective housing by Sabbatini and the garden city by Giovannoni), S.Paolo/Ostiense (the new university and the renewal of the industrial district of Rome, with the ongoing new Koolhaas’ project for the City of Youth)

mon 15 sep - At work
11th Venice Architecture Biennale

mon 22 sep - In context
Pippo Ciorra: Ludovico Quaroni and the Roman School

fri 26 sep - On Site
The City as a Model - EUR (Palazzo dei Congressi by Libera, Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana by La Padula, Congress Center By Massimiliano Fuksas, Centralità Catellaccio and Eurosky Tower by Franco Purini), Decima, Laurentino 38.

fri 3 oct - At work
Garofalo/Miura Architects

fri 10 oct - In context
Emanuele Trevi: The Real City. Writing about Rome from War to Boom

fri 31 oct - On site
The Neorealist City - Quartiere Tuscolano (Libera, De Renzi and others), Tiburtino (Quaroni, Ridolfi, Aymonino).

fri 7 nov - At work
Stalker / On

fri 14 nov - In context
International Conference: Architecture and Politics (Academia Belgica, Rome)

fri 21 nov - On site
The City of Culture - Foro Italico, Villaggio Olimpico, Parco della Musica By Renzo Piano, Maxxi by Zaha Hadid.

mon 24 nov - At work
Carlo Aymonino

fri 28 nov - In context
Pier Vittorio Aureli: The Project of Autonomy. Italian Architecture in ’60 and ‘70

fri 5 dec - Reviews and open discussion

mon 15 dec - Final Presentation (14.00 – 17.00)

---

Guest lecturers

Pippo Ciorra

Architect, critic and professor of design and theory at the School of Architecture of Ascoli Piceno, University of Camerino. Coordinator of the "Villard d'Honnecourt" international PhD program. Adviser for the MVDR prize and for the "Medaglia dell'architettura italiana". Since 1981 contributor to the cultural pages of "Il Manifesto" and other national newspapers and radio stations. Member of the editorial board of "Casabella", "Gomorra", "Parametro". Author of a number of books, texts, publications: among them Ludovico Quaroni, Peter Eisenman, (for Electa) Young Italian Architects (Birkhauser), Nuova architettuta italiana, (Skirà). He has curated and designed important exhibitions and installations in Italy and elsewhere, including the Biennale in Venice, the MAXXI museum and "Palazzo delle Esposizioni" in Rome, the "Casa dell'architettura" in Rome, the Mole Vanvitelliana and Palazzo degli Anziani in Ancona. Most recently he curated the show and catalogue: Next Generation_ Il futuro dei musei (Electa 2006).

Emanuele Trevi
Writer and journalist, born in Rome, 1964. Contributor to the "Manifesto" and "La Repubblica". He has published various collections of essays and narratives including: "Istruzioni per l'uso del lupo" (1994), "Musica distante" (1997), "I cani del nulla" (2003), "Senza verso" (2004), "L'onda del porto" (2005). Co-author with Marco Lodoli pf a text book entitled "Storie della vita"

Pier Vittorio Aureli
Pier Vittorio Aureli is an architect and educator. After graduating cum laude from the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia, Aureli obtained a doctorate in urban planning, a master’s degree at the Berlage Institute, and a PhD at the Berlage Institute/TU Delft. His theoretical studies focus on the relationship between architectural form, political thinking, and urban history. Aureli teaches at the Berlage Institute – where he is Unit Professor and responsible for the “research on the city” program. Currently he is visiting Professor at the Architectural Association in London, Columbia University in New York, and Delft University of Technology. Aureli has lectured and published worldwide and he is currently working on a book entitled “The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, a Study on the Representation of the City through Architectural Form, from Bramante to Mies”. Together with Martino Tattara is the cofounder of Dogma, and architectural collective centered on the project of the city. Recently Dogma won the first prize in the international competition for the new Administrative City for 500.000 inhabitants in the Republic of South Korea, and in 2006 received the Iakov Chernikhov Prize for the best emerging architectural practice.