SALVATELLI APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA SALVATELLI

Via Eleonora Duse 53 - Parioli

1939 Gio Ponti (1891/1979) and Antonio Fornaroli

An almost Spartan apartment block, simple and effective

Originally the external coatings were in stoneware (compact and waterproof ceramic paste) which remains only in the attic

All the façades were plastered later

“Ponti pursues the specific intention of offering 'functional refinement' instead of the usual 'gaudy lordly attributes'. His sober and discreet architecture, defined by slight projections from the wall and rhythmic continuous scanning of the openings, is a sophisticated product of the 'Novecento' (Twentieth century) style” (Giorgio Muratore)

VIA S. VALENTINO APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI VIA S. VALENTINO

Via S. Valentino 16 - Parioli

1948/50 Vincenzo Monaco (1911/69) e Amedeo Luccichenti (1907/63)

Vincenzo Monaco and Amedeo Luccichenti with this building and those they designed later in Via S. Crescenziano and Via del Circo Massimo greatly influenced the style of construction for this type of homes in Rome

“After the war, some Roman professionals, more attentive to the tastes of high and middle class client, formulated, after having stripped it of any ideological content, a refined formal repertoire clearly derived from Rationalism. Vincenzo Monaco and Amedeo Luccichenti are certainly the best interpreters of this attitude. After their successful debut with the now destroyed Villa Petacci on Via Camilluccia, they devoted themselves mainly to private residential construction and worked in particular on the theme of the apartment block, gradually refining the distribution patterns” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

VIA ARCHIMEDE 156 APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI VIA ARCHIMEDE 156

Via Archimede 156/158 - Parioli

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)

PIAZZA DELLE MUSE APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI PIAZZA DELLE MUSE

Piazza delle Muse 6-7 - Parioli

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)

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)

MOSQUE

MOSCHEA

Viale della Moschea

1984/92 Paolo Portoghesi (1931) and Vittorio Gigliotti (1921) in collaboration with Sami Moussawi. Inaugurated in 1995

It is the largest mosque in Europe. Area of 34,000 m² (8.4 acres) which includes the Islamic Cultural Centre

The vast prayer hall has a capacity of about 3,000 people

The minaret is the only one in the world without loudspeakers

The land was offered by the Italian Government in 1975. The project was primarily funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its King Faisal, but there were contributions from 23 Arab and Islamic countries. The Moroccan government sent skilled workers for the ceramic decorations

"The great expansion of Islam has produced architectural cultures that have marked differences between them, mixing the Islamic culture with the local traditions. (...) For this reason the Roman Mosque is the synthesis of various architectural models and clear intertwined traditions: from the Persian type, where there is a strong mediation between interior and exterior spaces, also used in Etruscan architecture, to the Ottoman mosques (Hagia Sophia) with the presence of the large central dome and the value of spatial unity. To resume Roman tradition highly symbolical materials have been used, such as tuff and white marble, but also the peristyle of the mosque recalls the arches of the imperial Fora of ancient Rome. (...) The small domes are inspired by Borromini but also Guarini and Vittone have strongly influenced the Mosque" (Paolo Portoghesi)

SUNFLOWER HOUSE

CASA DEL GIRASOLE

Viale Bruno Buozzi 64

1950 masterpiece by Luigi Moretti (1907/73)

Early example of postmodern architecture and interpretation of cultured and refined elegance that stands out among the contemporary limitless real estate speculation

The deep and clear vertical incision gives light to the staircase at the center of the building 

"This house is the most mature expression of Luigi Moretti's architectural research. (...) The symmetry determined by the vertical incision is maintained only in the body of the projecting floors, because both the shape of the base covered in travertine (wider at the right) and the shape of the crown (different heights of the two inclined parts) tend to contradict that symmetry" (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

"The criticism of the postwar period has never forgiven the solid link with the economic right wing and the real estate speculators. He was a student of Gustavo Giovannoni and an embarrassing demon for the Roman culture, boasting of working only for nobles and oil aristocrats. We would love what is beautiful to coincide with what is good, right and useful, but instead architecture, like life, is contradictory and cannot be explained by a formula. Seen through the innocent eyes that bind form, ethics, politics, the Sunflower House is a luxury version of the many Roman buildings of real estate speculation. But, instead, it is also an extraordinary work. Moretti has carefully weaved a bright wall of windows and then opened it by a vertical cut in which the dark shadows of the rough stone base of the atrium violently flow back. A bit of madness on the solidity of the Roman walls. A baroque machine that has nothing, however, of the forms of the past. Perhaps this deep understanding of the continuity of modern and the sense of innovation, is one of the most effective antidotes that Moretti has left us against the arbitrary and narcissistic result of much contemporary architecture" (Giuseppe Strappa)