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)

LARGO SPINELLI APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI LARGO SPINELLI

Largo Nicola Spinelli 5/Via Giovanni Paisiello

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)

HOTEL CAVALIERI HILTON

HOTEL CAVALIERI HILTON

Via Alberto Cadlolo 101

1961/63 Ugo Luccichenti (1898/1976), Emilio Pifferi (1907/?) and Alberto Ressa (1902/?), built as an exception to the municipal urban plan for the Società Generale Immobiliare (General Real Estate Company)

In the atrium spiral fountain by Franco Albini (1905/77) and Franca Helg (1920/89)

The very expensive restaurant "La Pergola" on the top floor, boasting the prestigious chef Heinz Beck, is considered one of the best restaurants in the whole of Italy

"The operation, at the center of a bitter controversy carried on by the weekly magazine L'Espresso and the National Institute of Urban Planning, started in 1954, when the company had entered into an agreement with Hilton Real Estate to build a hotel in Monte Mario in a designated area for public parks or extensive building, in which it was planned a wide panoramic square similar to the one on the Janiculum Hill. The question debated also in court concluded, however, with the construction of a huge hotel with eight floors above ground and three underground, the impact of which was 'in fact much worse than it could have been expected' (Italo Insolera)" (Gianluca Ficorilli - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

Among the over one thousand works of art kept in the hotel:

Paintings

"Ulysses discovering Achilles among the daughters of Nicomedes" by G.B. Tiepolo (1696/1770)

"Judgement of Paris" by Giuseppe Bazzani (1690/1769)

"Landscape with Hermit" by Alessandro Magnasco (1667/1749)

"Flora" by Carlo Cignani (1628/1719) a pupil of Francesco Albani

"Arrival of the Bucintoro in St. Mark's Square" by Josef Heintz the Younger (about 1600/78)

"Country landscape with bridge" by Giuseppe Zaïs (1709/84) artist from Belluno who died in poverty, exponent of the Arcadian school

"Dollar Sign" by Andy Warhol (1928/87)

Sculptures

Bronze statue "Boy with Dog" by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770/1844)

Marble sculpture "The Kiss" by Antonio Tantardini (1829/79)

Remarkable collection of antique furniture and prestigious tapestries from Belgium and Beauvais, Art Nouveau clocks and vases

APARTMENTS' BLOCK IN VIALE LIBIA

EDIFICIO INTENSIVO IN VIALE LIBIA

Viale Libia 6/14

1953/54 Ugo Luccichenti (1898/1976)

While using the maximum building area available, he did not gave up on solutions of architectural value

"His activity is tied hand in glove with that of the Società Generale Immobiliare (General Realty Company), a company key protagonist of the capital's urban development and real estate throughout the last century, both for new buildings (...) both as regards with famous city 'demolitions', especially around the Vatican, under whose control the company went after the Lateran Treaty of '29 (...). Luccichenti for nearly thirty years has been a key player, able to mix in his works practicality and structural testing, economic needs and a refined language, his being 'engineer' while his being an 'architect'. For nearly thirty years he has been able to incorporate and consolidate the European and Italian lessons, from Giò Ponti to Mallet-Stevens, from Moretti to Mendelsohn, perfectly able to encode expressionist and rationalist influences, breaking codes just to give them new life through precise and never banal interpretations (...). Few like him have managed to combine architecture with the relentless demands of commitments" (Luca Nicotera - (h) ortus, architecture magazine)

RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX BELSITO

COMPLESSO RESIDENZIALE BELSITO

Piazzale delle Medaglie d'Oro

1953 Ugo Luccichenti (1898/1976) for the Società Generale Immobiliare (General Building Society) during the Italian economical boom

It reflects the new optimism for the future after the tragedy of World War II

"The architectonical vocabulary is part of the so-called International Style, even if it is much richer and variegated in its formal solutions. Walls light as screens, crystal clear transparencies, delicate colors and diagonals repeatedly present contribute to give to the architectonical result that lightness and brightness that the fast growing bourgeoisie, with its new found wealth, is now permitted to enjoy" (Giorgio Muratore)