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)

FURMANIK APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA FURMANIK

Lungotevere Flaminio 18

1935/38 Mario De Renzi (1897/1967), Giorgio Calza Bini (1908/99), Maurizio Sacripanti (1916/96) and Pietro Sforza who supervised the sophisticated interiors unfortunately destroyed by the recent renovation which altered the exterior as well of such an elegant building

It is considered a masterpiece of the Rationalism of the Roman school

It was built for residential use but is now home to the offices of Equitalia, the government agency whose job is to collect taxes

“The main front projecting toward the Tiber is dug deep into a series of superimposed loggias, developed without interruption along the entire length of the façade, to echo the horizontality of the watercourse. In the other sides continuity of wall surface prevails, evenly punctured by holes that are repeated with a single module. Lately the intended use has been changed from homes to offices, and an improvident action of restructuring has severely mortified the figurative coherence of the system by eliminating the sliding shutters, which protected the interior from the midday light and made the front vibrate, and adding an external fire escape at the rear” (Giorgio Muratore)

“The formal result overall is of great interest because it corresponds to a very concise idea: the compact volume of the building looks almost dug by large continuous openings that determine, in the alternation with the full parapets, a rhythm of horizontal elements featuring well-balanced proportions” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

PIAZZA TRASIMENO APARTMENT HOUSE

PALAZZINA DI PIAZZA TRASIMENO

Piazza Trasimeno 6 - Corso Trieste

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)

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)

AIRONE MOVIE THEATER

CINEMA AIRONE

Via Lidia 44 - Via Latina

1953/56 Adalberto Libera (1903/63) for ENPAIA (Ente Nazionale per la Previdenza dei Lavoratori Agricoli e Forestali - National Agency for the Welfare of Agricultural and Forestry Workers)

Spectacular architecture of the great Tyrolean architect among the greatest exponents of Rationalism

"I felt the interior of the hall as the interior of a mandolin, but I was not helped by a mathematical formula, so I went ahead for the best with elliptical sections connected by empirical relationships" (Adalberto Libera)

It was decorated with frescoes by the brilliant abstract artist Giuseppe Capogrossi (1900/72) unfortunately partially destroyed and partially degraded by those who ran the movie theater over the years

The cinema had 800 seats and was constructed about 5 m (16.4 feet) below street level, in a housing complex designed and executed in the same years 1953/56 by Leo Calini (1903/85) and Eugenio Montuori (1907/82)

During the years it was demeaned and brutally reconverted as a disco (Charleston, Stellarium) and as a pub (Makumba) before being left abandoned until 2011, when the Municipality of Rome promoted its restoration and its recovery as a cultural center

One hopes that this gem of the art of Rome may shine again one day

"Adalberto Libera, in developing the project, declined the theme dear to him of the collective room. (...) From the stage frame, with the shape of a television of the 1950s, departed rays of green and white silk accompanying the development of the ceiling and imitating, in the intentions of the architect, the rising of the sun. To embellish the interior of the building, Libera wanted a mural created by Giuseppe Capogrossi, illustrious exponent of Italian abstract art. Spectators, entering the cinema, used to admire the beautiful color flow of the Roman painter stretched in dynamic routes on the ceiling of the large entrance stairway" (Associazione di Promozione Sociale Cineairone - Association of Social Promotion Cineairone - www.cineairone.com)

"The basic idea was to create a unified hall, eliminating the gallery. (...) To build a space functionally and psychologically fit for the purpose, Libera had chosen a shape determined on one hand by the curves of visibility, on the other hand by the desire to define a void that would have its completed form, almost with an absolute value, possibly translated into a mathematical equation. The result (...) was an ovoid with the rear deeply lowered and a considerable expansion at the proscenium. A continuous space extremely enveloping because it has no vertical walls, with the character of an animal cavity, almost the pulsating interior of an organ" (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

BUILDING FOR APARTMENTS ON VIA S. BASILIO

EDIFICIO PER ABITAZIONI IN VIA S. BASILIO

Via S. Basilio 53

1931/32 Adalberto Libera (1903/63)

Also known as CASA NICOLETTI (Nicoletti House)

Restructuring by the great architect from Trentino of a nineteenth-century building for homes, only a stone's throw from Piazza Barberini. It was his first project in Rome 

"Libera is certainly one of the most important figures in the scene of Roman architecture in the thirties and probably, with Mario Ridolfi, the only figure on international level that has operated in Rome in the period between the two wars. (...) He designed the new façade of this building on Via S. Basilio to which he gave a peculiar elegance through the use of moldings in travertine quite projecting and light tubular metal railings painted. Sadly very degraded, the building is today occupied by a small hotel" (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

SINGLE FAMILY HOME ON VIA CARINI

CASA UNIFAMILIARE DI VIA CARINI

Via Giacinto Carini 28 - Porta S. Pancrazio

1926 Gaetano Minnucci (1896/1980)

One of the first residential buildings to be designed according to the indications of the emerging rationalist movement

"Given the date of the project, this building is substantially interesting both for its volumetric composition and for the particular simplicity of its formal solutions. Equally significant is the interior which plays a dominant role in the scale that determines a double-height space, made very bright by the two large windows in the front" (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

"With the book 'The modern popular dwellings in contemporary Holland' (Rome 1926) (...) Minnucci stated the themes of his research on the paradigms of modernity, which he directly applied in the design of the single-family house on Via Carini (...), in which the matrix is distinctly Dutch. This house was one of the few contemporary works that were published in the Manifesto of the Group 7 to be effectively built. (...) The Group 7 (...) dictated new standards for architecture with a series of articles in the journal 'Rassegna Italiana' (Italian Review), that in December 1926 also published the manifesto of Italian Rationalism, which argued the rejection of Eclecticism in favor of the principle of construction in series. This document was prior to the establishment of the Movimento Italiano per l'Architettura Razionale (MIAR) (Italian Movement for Rational Architecture), which included fifty architects divided into regional areas, with Minnucci secretary of the Roman area since the foundation" (Alessandra Capanna - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

ROWING CLUB KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS

CIRCOLO DEI CAVALIERI DI COLOMBO

Lungotevere Flaminio 87

1934 Ernesto La Padula (1902/68)

It fills up with refined rationalism the space between the bank of the Tiber and the Lungotevere (the road along the Tiber)

"Built specifically making use of nautical imagery (...). The reference exhibited to international architecture is made with the adoption of a strict geometry, set on golden rules. The structure has a symmetry that the planimetric asymmetric overhang roof terrace helps to mitigate" (Giorgio Muratore)

DE' SALVI HOUSE

CASA DE' SALVI

Piazza della Libertà 20

1929/30 Pietro Aschieri (1889/1952)

One of the best examples of rationalist architecture in Rome

"The overlay of decorative elements is replaced by the careful treatment of the walls and the variable projections of the balconies, creating a close dialogue of the elements. The reformulation of some themes in a modern derivation of the Baroque is featured not only in the articulation of the elevations, but also in the insertion of the spiral staircase in the heart of the building block" (Giorgio Muratore)

"In this work too Aschieri shows his interest for the 'wall' and its possible formal characterizations, here resolved through a double set of concave recessions with elliptical cross-section (a theme that he uses in other projects in the same period) that mark vertically the façades and which are even more marked by the continuous bands of the balconies that, in correspondence of the smaller concavity, are projecting outside with a semicircular loggia. It is a theme that directly quotes the articulations of the baroque masses" (Piero Ostilio Rossi)