Saturday, October 31, 2015

VIA PISANELLI APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI VIA PISANELLI


1950/52 Bruno Zevi (1918/2000) and Silvio Radiconcini

Innovative building where the architect Bruno Zevi practically applied his theory of so-called “organic architecture”

“Bruno Zevi writes in his 'History of Modern Architecture': Organic architecture is a kind of architecture functional not only regarding the technical and the social purpose of the building, but also regarding the psychology of the people'. And again: ''The substance of the organic movement is in the emphasis given by architects to the interior space, the empty cavities of the building, the environment in which social life takes place'. (...) The basic idea is that of using the typological plant of the building, transforming it into a block made out of superimposed villas (4 per floor) in which each accommodation has open spaces, plenty of light, pleasant and varied views to the outside” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)
 
“Four 'villas' articulated as if they were in the countryside, completely isolated. The organicity of Wright in the urban universe of Le Corbusier, with the profile of roofs in Gaudì style. The scheme is among the most innovative, but the alignment of the windows and the joints between balconies and pillars attenuate its expressiveness” (Official Web Site Fondazione Bruno Zevi - www.fondazionebrunozevi.it)

Friday, October 30, 2015

VIA MARIA ADELAIDE APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI VIA MARIA ADELAIDE


1936 Gino Franzi (1898/1971)

Ten luxury apartments a few steps from Piazza del Popolo, designed by the architect from Piedmont with a formal language very bare-bones, essential and compact

“The solution, which provides a projection of 1.40 m (4.6 feet) of the three upper floors on each of the main fronts, on the one hand allows for greater organization of housing and on the other defines a 'base' on which the overall formal idea of the building is formed” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Thursday, October 29, 2015

VIA BRUXELLES APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI VIA BRUXELLES


1934/35 Andrea Busiri Vici (1903/89), grand-son of the namesake architect Andrea Busiri Vici (1818/1911)

Interesting architecture with airy terraces in continuous bands

Five-storey building with eleven apartments

The family dynasty of architects Busiri Vici was notable for the enormous amount of work done in Rome and for an attachment to the traditional language of architecture, also due to a type of clients generally not eager to particular stylistic adventures

“This building is perhaps the project where the 'detachment from the times' typical of the Busiri Vicis appears to be less present: its stylistic characters converse in fact fully with the Roman architectural production of the thirties. (...) The typological scheme is organized in so as to eliminate the usual internal small courtyards: the two sets of stairs are in fact well-ventilated and illuminated directly from the covered terraces placed on both sides” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

VIA ARCHIMEDE 156 APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI VIA ARCHIMEDE 156


1930 Gino Franzi (1898/1971)

This building by the Piedmontese architect Gino Franzi is one of the first buildings for residential purposes in Rome truly modern in appearance and design

Gino Franzi also designed the Palazzo delle Poste in Naples along with Giuseppe Vaccaro

“The functionalist matrix of the project is clear from the distributive solutions, and the organization of plants, determining the very compact volume and the extremely simple lines, marked on the front on the street by the horizontal length of the loggias. (...) Even in the solution of the crowning - an attic floor which, with its articulation, is a counterpoint to the main volume and a vertical element that gives momentum and stresses the alignment of the composition - one can reread formal themes related to European Rationalism” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Monday, October 26, 2015

VIA ARCHIMEDE 148 APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI VIA ARCHIMEDE 148


1939 Luigi Piccinato (1899/1984)

15 apartments

Built on a very steep slope that made possible to have two different entrances: one for pedestrians at the top, on Via Archimede, and one for the access of vehicles to the garages at the bottom, on Via Monte Guidubaldo

“Careful study of light (large windows, use of transparent partition, the absence of enclosed courtyards and dark corridors) and the articulation of the plant that allows original distribution, are the main qualities of this project which tends to reproduce, in a house intended for high income families, some of the results of research on low-cost buildings developed in previous years by the architects of the Modern Movement” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Sunday, October 25, 2015

PIUS IV SMALL PALACE

PALAZZINA DI PIO IV


1561 Pirro Ligorio (about 1513/83) for Pius IV Medici (1559/65)

Pirro Ligorio adapted the façade to a pre-existing porch of about 1525, maybe by Jacopo Tatti aka Jacopo Sansovino (1486/1570) and to the FOUNTAIN OF THE AQUA VIRGO 1552/53 maybe by Bartolomeo Ammannati (1511/92) with a hydraulic system by Jacopo Barozzi aka Vignola (1507/73)

The building is also known as PALAZZO BORROMEO as Pius IV gave it to his nephew (his sister's son) St. Charles Borromeo, who had a second floor built and gave it in turn to his sister Anna. After Anna's marriage with a member of the Colonna family, the building passed to them

Now it is the seat of the ITALIAN EMBASSY TO THE HOLY SEE

Friday, October 23, 2015

PIAZZA TRASIMENO APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI PIAZZA TRASIMENO


1931 Pietro Aschieri (1889/1952)

This building with its peculiar irregular plan had a considerable influence on the style of the residential buildings in Rome

“In this project the usual elements of his repertoire (splayed windows, round balconies, strong chiaroscuro) combine with a subject very dear to expressionist architecture: the dynamic characterization of the angle. (...) From all of works carried out by Aschieri in those years (...) a sort of 'manner' resulted, a taste, a gusto that characterized a significant part of the production of that period” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Thursday, October 22, 2015

PIAZZA DELLE MUSE APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI PIAZZA DELLE MUSE


1940 Ugo Luccichenti (1898/1976)

Original, solar light and architectural solution for a building that is one of the most successful ideas for the civil part of the Italian Rationalism

The balconies are 47 m long (154 feet)

“An interesting example of the compositional maturity reached by Ugo Luccichenti. The main façade doesn't have the materiality of a wall and it turns into a chassis designed by the pillars, on the edge of the façade, and by the edges of the long overhanging balconies. The same design goes beyond the corners and it is repeated on a portion of the side façades, contradicting the uniformity of volume of the building. Large windows close the empty areas of the front, as if to let in the outer landscape within the apartments” (Gianluca Ficorilli - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)


“While in the Furmanik Apartment Block by Mario De Renzi the large balconies are the ones to have the most important formal value, in this project by Luccichenti the cancellation of the 'wall' plays a crucial role. The large windows that, interrupted only by the rhythm of pillars, occupy the entire front of square and round the corners of the side elevations, tend to make intangible part of the built volume and to project into the interior the landscape that goes from Villa Ada to Monte Mario. The large balconies, looking thin for a metal railing (...) lose most of their weight to gain the value of a thin cantilever” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

LARGO SPINELLI APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI LARGO SPINELLI


1954 Ugo Luccichenti (1898/1976)

Bold visual and volumetric solutions for this very modern building just a few steps away from Villa Borghese, set in a context of traditional architectures completely contrasting with the particular type of rationalist mannerism that characterizes it

“The volume of the building is divided into base, main body and crown, and each part is transformed by Luccichenti in a pattern of composition. The main body, jutting out over the two floors of the basement, is engraved in the lower level by a loggia continuing on all four sides and bends outward at the front on Via Paisiello. In the roof, the slab jutting out of Largo Spinelli turns the attic into a large loggia digging the volume in its end. The articulated arrangement of the ribbon windows, well designed, gives to the whole building a very peculiar appearance” (Gianluca Ficorilli - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)


“The building is defined by the high quality of its materials (ceramics, wood, glass) and (...) by the ribbon windows modulated almost like a musical score. On one side the wall bends to pick up almost a suggestion from the street, but did not follow it slavishly, managing to maintain its own autonomy, yet being in continuity with the city” (Luca Nicotera - Percorsi romani: Ugo Luccichenti - www.vg-hortus.it)

Sunday, October 18, 2015

APARTMENT HOUSE OF THE COOPERATIVE THE TURTLE

PALAZZINA DELLA COOPERATIVA LA TARTARUGA


1951/54 Ludovico Quaroni (1911/87) and Carlo Aymonino (1926/2010)

Some aesthetic and functional innovations of this building stand out for their originality, as the extensive use of brown bricks in the façades or the porch on the ground floor accessible to vehicles

“The desire to transfer in the building types for the middle-class some of the main themes of the architectural research related to the Association for Organic Architecture was already apparent in the Roman buildings for apartments by Mario Ridolfi, Bruno Zevi and Luigi Piccinato. (...) This project by Ludovico Quaroni, in collaboration with the young Carlo Aymonino, moves in the same direction, fitting in that 'neo-realist' vein which with the Neighborhood INA-Casa Tiburtino IV (to which they both participated) had its most radical expression. The open structure, the articulation of the plan and of the volume, the force of the overall image, the particular use of hard and rough materials, which anticipates in some way some of the characters of the so-called 'Brutalism', are the issues around which the architectural design of this building was planned” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Friday, October 16, 2015

COLOMBO APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA COLOMBO


1934/37 Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) and Wolfgang Frankl (1907/94)

The building is shaped like the letter C with unequal arms, and includes an apartment on each floor except the last two forming a single apartment

The rooms are distributed considering the most appropriate exposure: living area facing west, night area facing south, service rooms facing north

“The theme is substantially different from that of the Palazzina Rea in Via di Villa Massimo, but some elements are recurrent and in particular the 'thickness' of the façade which here takes on an even greater depth until it became almost a projection out underlined by the deep lateral openings” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

CALZONE APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA CALZONE


1909/10 Filippo Galassi (1856/1920) for the printing industrialist Ettore Calzone

Interesting façade with a mixture of Gothic and Art Nouveau motifs

It was an innovative use of reinforced concrete

It is attributed by some scholars to Vittorio Mascanzoni in the years 1902/03

In the ground floor there is the Irish Pub Trinity College

In Ettore Calzone's typography in Via della Lungara the first banknotes of the Kingdom of Italy were printed. The typography was a leader in production of prints with machines imported from America

Saturday, October 10, 2015

INPS AND INA PALACES

PALAZZI DELL'INPS E DELL'INA


1940 Giovanni Muzio (1893/1982), Mario Paniconi (1904/73) and Giulio Pediconi (1906/99) inspired by the Trajan markets, built using reinforced concrete and covered in Carrara marble
Leaving Rome the INA PALACE is on the left while the INPS PALACE is on the right

The COURTYARD of the INA Palace is covered with cipolin marble with thirty-six pillars made out of Baveno marble

Reliefs sculpted in 1941:

On the short façades of the INA Palace “The conquest of the seas” Oddo Aliventi (1898/1975) and “The Fascist Empire” by Quirino Ruggeri (1883/1955)

On the short façades of the INPS Palace “The maritime republics” Mirko (Mirko Basaldella) (1910/69) and “Rome against Carthage” Giuseppe Mazzullo (1913/88)

Friday, October 9, 2015

EXHIBITION PALACES

PALAZZI DELL'ESPOSIZIONE


1938/40 Ludovico Quaroni (1911/87), Francesco Fariello (1910) and Saverio Muratori (1910/73) as the site for museums that were never built

Built in the same years as the other two buildings arranged symmetrically around the square

The columns in the galleries are made out of cipolin green marble

The building at No. 22 is largely occupied by the ITALO-AMERICAN INSTITUTE as well as by banks, shops and a restaurant

The building at No. 24 is home to offices including the TAX REGISTER OF THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE

“Together with Saverio Muratori and especially with Ludovico Quaroni, Francesco Fariello signed nearly all of those projects that became, in short, a benchmark for comparison and discussion for the new generations of architects active in Rome just before the Second World War. Major projects and, more importantly, evidence, each one of them, of a not superficial attention to what was happening in areas of high European culture, in Germany, Scandinavia, and that would be at the center of academic debate for many years to come; the work of Gropius, Asplund and Bonatz marks the stylistic hallmark of these years. Projects, against which, not only the younger architects, but also different and already established personalities as Arnaldo Foschini and Adalberto Libera will have to deal, equip, modify critical and theoretical positions, otherwise acquired” (Giorgio Muratore - archiwatch.wordpress.com)

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

EXEDRA PALACES

PALAZZI DELL'ESEDRA


1886/1903 Gaetano Koch (1849/1910)

So called for the ancient series of porticoes with seats constituting the exedra of the ancient Baths of Diocletian built in the years 298/306

The palaces were built following the circular line of the baths’ exedra

Inside it is possible to see remnants of mosaic, a bathtub and an octagonal fountain

Gaetano Koch himself lived here and now the palaces house offices and the luxury hotel BOSCOLO EXEDRA after modifications designed by the architect Maurizio Papiri and the designer Adam D. Tihany

“The Exedra Palaces, the most significant mark left by Koch in the city, are one of symbolic urban hubs of the Third Rome. Constructed on the ruins of the exedra of the Baths of Diocletian, the buildings have a curved arch form in serial succession - Giant Order - attic executed purely in Roman style, while in the four short ends, with more pronounced plastic character, style and decorative elements (caryatids, curvilinear gables) are concentrated to denote the ease of the designer in making inroads in different historical periods” (Fabrizio Di Marco - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

Cardboard drawn in preparation for “Geography” 1934/36 by Mario Sironi (1885/1961), part of the mosaic “Corporate Italy” exhibited at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1937 and now in Milan in the Palazzo dei Giornali (Palace of Newspapers)

Monday, October 5, 2015

BERNINI PALACES

PALAZZI BERNINI


PALACE at No. 11

Maybe by Gaspare De Vecchi (active 1628/1643) and Pier Paolo Drei

Home of the great Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) where he lived most of his life and where he died

Formerly known as Palazzo Naro (Naro Palace) and bought in 1641 by Pietro Bernini, Gian Lorenzo's father

PALACE AT No. 12

Bernini's studio with “Plaque and bust of Bernini” 1892 by Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929) which should have really been placed at No. 11

Saturday, October 3, 2015

ZUCCARI SMALL PALACE

PALAZZETTO ZUCCARI


1592 Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609) to house his art academy, the ACCADEMIA DI S. LUCA (Academy of St. Luke), established in 1577 but officially founded in 1593, of which he was also the first Director or Prince

After the death of Federico Zuccari the building was raised with two extra floors in the years 1610/18 by Girolamo Rainaldi (1570/1655) for the new owner MarcantonioToscanella

In 1702 it was leased to the queen of Poland Maria Casimira who continued the works of transformation

1904/07 rearrangement of the building by Mario Cannizzaro to house the library

PORTICO
1711 maybe by Filippo Juvarra (1678/1736)

In the EXTERNAL FRIEZE there are the symbols of the Zuccari family: sugarloaf and comets

It is commonly described as the HOUSE OF MONSTERS for the bizarre decorations around doors and windows

CORRIDOR
“Hercules at the Crossroads” by Federico Zuccari and his older brother Taddeo Zuccari (1529/66)

ROOM OF THE GLORY OF THE ARTIST
“Effigies of Federico Zuccari and his family” by Federico Zuccari and Taddeo Zuccari
 Frescoes by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546) from Villa Lante on the Janiculum Hill

Among the personalities who lived in the palace Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717/78), Pietro Bracci (1700/73) and Louis David (1748/1825) who painted here the famous “Oath of the Horatii” now in the Louvre

With the adjacent Palazzo Stroganoff it houses the rich BIBLIOTECA HERTZIANA (Hertz Library) founded by Henriette Hertz in 1900 specializing in history of medieval and modern Italian art with over 170,000 volumes
The salon of Henriette Hertz was attended by the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio who immortalized it in his novel “The Pleasure” in 1905
In the Hertziana Library there was until 1887 a cycle of frescoes “Stories of Joseph” painted by the Nazarenes and now in Berlin

Under the building there is a large wall with semicircular niches, certainly a NYMPHAEUM, a large fountain, belonging to the Horti Luculliani