POST OFFICE ON PIAZZA BOLOGNA

UFFICIO POSTALE DI PIAZZA BOLOGNA
Piazza Bologna 39

1934/35 Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) in collaboration with Wolfgang Frankl (1907/94) from a 1931 project of Ridolfi himself and Mario Fagiolo who, immediately after, gave up the profession of architect

“Over the years, several changes have altered the original figurative coherence of this intervention, influenced by Central European experiences. It does constitute a pinnacle of the Italian architectural production between the wars” (Giorgio Muratore)
“Ridolfi planned a project that some liked to call 'Expressionist Rationalism'. This post office can not only solve the square but also identify with it; in fact, when one thinks about Piazza Bologna one immediately thinks of the post office as a very strong formal element, characterizing the urban environment that surrounds it. (...) The whole system of the neighborhood in a radial pattern ends up having as a core this element, very strong architecturally. Looking from the side façade it is visible the curve that echoes the 'Roman Baroque style'“ (Ghisi Grütter)

INA CASA TIBURTINO IV NEIGHBORHOOD

QUARTIERE INA-CASA TIBURTINO IV

Via Tiburtina km 7/Via Filippo Fiorentini/Via Alfredo Comandini

1950/56 Ludovico Quaroni (1911/87) with Mario Ridolfi (1904/84)

Area consisting of 8.8 hectares (22 acres) with 771 lodgings for about 4.000 inhabitants and unfortunately incorporated by the larger civil constructions built later

It belongs to a period, immediately after the Second World War, unfortunately short, during which the architects had in mind and still pursued the welfare of those who would live in the buildings they designed, not compromising yet with the lack of scruples of civil constructions companies

“One of the most representative examples of low-budget civil planning in the postwar period which, in terms of architectural research, is the manifesto of Neorealism. The recovery of popular culture is in opposition both to the rhetoric of the fascist regime, and to the icy and alienating experiences of internationalism in the postwar period. The project provides for the creation of an urban nucleus on a human scale, which gives the image of a small and sleepy town” (Giorgio Muratore)

“The enormous and rapid urban development, especially private, that has surrounded the Roman quarters of INA House, formally completed and isolated in the city of the Fifties, has expanded - not only to the Tiburtino IV - the bitter self-criticism formulated by Ludovico Quaroni already at the end the Fifties: to have created a village closed in itself and unable to communicate with the city. The attempt promoted by the plan to reconcile the necessity of living with that of building was modeled in its various territorial applications, but does not establish itself as a paradigmatic transformation of the city” (Alice Sotgia)

FAO PALACE

PALAZZO DELLA FAO

Viale delle Terme di Caracalla

1938 Vittorio Cafiero (1901/81) e Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) con Ettore Rossi (1894/1968), Giulio Rinaldi, Wolfgang Frankl (1907/94), Alberto Legnani e Armando Sabatini

Designed as the Ministry of Italian Africa but completed and extended for the new use only in the years 1950/52 by Vittorio Cafiero himself

Headquarters of the FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS

The building is leased to the UN by the Italian government for the symbolic price of $ 1 per year

Near Piazza di Porta Capena, in front of the building, in 1937 the stele of Axum was placed, an obelisk of the fourth century AD moved here from Ethiopia by the order office Mussolini. In 2005 the obelisk was removed from the square and returned to the Government of Ethiopia

MANCIOLI APARTMENT HOUSES

PALAZZINE MANCIOLI

Via Lusitania 29 - Via Vulci 9

1953/54, PALAZZINA MANCIOLI I in Via Lusitania 29

1959/60, PALAZZINA MANCIOLI II in Via Vulci 9

Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) e Wolfgang Frankl (1907/94)

Original examples of bow-windows in a rationalist version adapted to the Fifties

“In the apartment block of Via Lusitania it is very original the solution of the windows in which the external covering transformed into a molding that frames the upper part, refers to one of the typical elements of the classical tradition of architecture” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

ZACCARDI APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA ZACCARDI

Via G.B. De Rossi 12 - Nomentano

1950/54 Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) and Wolfgang Frankl (1907/94)

It is characterized by glass surfaces articulated with alternating projections and recesses of great visual impact

“The building reflects the architect's personal evolution going from a more strictly rationalist position to a language that has a higher plastic intensity and greater wealth of decorative accents” (Giorgio Muratore)

“First accomplished result of the work of revising the rationalist vocabulary that Ridolfi was developing in the early postwar years. It was a work based on the belief that it was important to make the language of modern architecture more akin to the common way of people and therefore it was necessary to make it richer and less abstract (...). Peculiar is the introduction of a coverage 'in the hood' with coated glass mosaic that binds together the two volumes of the building. It was this solution, as well as the shape of the balconies, the design of the fixtures and railings, in later years to become a linguistic element widely present in contemporary production. Ridolfi's works were in fact often used as a catalog of forms to choose from, rather than a methodological reference” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

REA APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA REA

Via di Villa Massimo 39 - Nomentano

1934/36 Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) and Wolfgang Frankl for the engineer Tullio Rea

Mario Ridolfi was in 1933 in Germany and Switzerland, where he was able to appreciate the German Rationalism applied to residential building

“It reflects the direct knowledge of German residential architecture and of the experiments of Central European rationalism” (Giorgio Muratore)

“The façade is characterized by a 'thickness' (a theme already tried in previous projects), of which the projections, the side cladding, the windows and the shelter of the attic determine the articulated depth” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

“The plan of the building at Villa Massimo has a 'rational' layout but in a practical way, deeply tied to the context. The formal character of the building, the site-specific character, are always important for Ridolfi” (Website of DAUR of the University of Padua)

INAIL APARTMENT HOUSE ALSO KNOWN AS "WITCHES' HOUSE"

PALAZZINA INAIL DETTA “CASA DELLE STREGHE”

Viale Marco Polo 96

1953/56 Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) and Wolfgang Frankl (1907/94)

19 apartments, 3 stores on the main front and garages below the level of the road

The top floor was used by Mario Ridolfi as his studio until the early Seventies together with Giulio Rinaldi, Wolfgang Frankl and Domenico Malagricci

Ridolfi moved later to Marmore near Terni, where he committed suicide

“The building is furrowed by deep grooves, corners are rounded and often ruffled by the projections of the windows. The crown is defined by a parapet inclined towards the outside: in the language of Ridolfi and Frankl seem to emerge suggestions with a medieval flavor” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

“Formed in the wake of the great Roman tradition, the one of Borromini and Carimini, of the artisans who came to the architect craft through the initiation of menial jobs (he was a decorator and then designer), Ridolfi documented its unique realism of classical clarity through countless drawings: geological layers of signs that made up to order beams, stones, brick walls in an organic and necessary relationship. A difficult summary, built with patient, loving toil in which the eye recognizes, however, the charm of an essential, familiar simplicity” (Giuseppe Strappa - Repubblica of 19 marzo 1998)

COLOMBO APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA COLOMBO

Via di S. Valentino 21 - Parioli

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)

TOWER HOUSES IN VIALE ETIOPIA

CASE A TORRE DI VIALE ETIOPIA

Viale Etiopia

On the right 1951/54 Mario Ridolfi (1904/84) and Wolfgang Frankl (1907/94)

On the left 1957/62 Mario Fiorentino (1918/82)

Eight towers, a masterpiece of neo-realism in residential intensive housing