Monday, December 5, 2016

PALACE OF THE GEOLOGICAL OFFICE

PALAZZO DELL'UFFICIO GEOLOGICO
1873/80 Raffaele Canevari (1828/1900)
“Girders and beams of iron, cast iron columns, bolts and studs in sight. Raffaele Canevari, engineer, used these new materials for their functionality and transformed them into decorative elements” (Irene de Guttry)
“In this work, totally his own, which is undoubtedly his best architectural job, the technical and structural innovations and the ruthlessness of the formal language make the building comparable to contemporary European examples, freed, as it appears, of academic weight” (Guido Miano - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
Institution founded in Florence in 1869 and moved to Rome in 1873 to complete the geological Italian map
In 1960 the Geological Office became the organ of the state mapping for geological and geothematic mapping
In 1976 the official geological coverage of the national territory in scale of 1:100,000 was completed
In 2002 the Geological Survey merged in the Agenzia per la Protezione dell'Ambiente e per i Servizi Tecnici (Agency for Environmental Protection and Technical Services) (APAT, later ISPRA), representing mainly the Dipartimento per la Difesa del Suolo (Department for the Defense of the Soil)
In 2002 during renovation works in the basement of the building a section of the original Servian Walls in blocks of cappellaccio stone was found, proof that their dating can be fixed without a doubt to the mid-sixth century BC
For the reconstruction of the walls in 378 BC Grotta Oscura tufa was used instead
GEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
Collection of about 150,000 artifacts accumulated in about 140 years of life of the institution: marbles and paleontological materials with specialized library and laboratory for analysis of minerals and rocks
The museum and the whole building have been lying for years in conditions of extreme neglect for the disgusting inefficiency or willful misconduct of the public administration that has dismantled the museum for a renovation that never happened, despite two governments have allocated public money to complete it. Another disgrace of the caste which sadly administers Italy
In front of the palace
Small section of the Servian Walls dating to 378 BC
Monument “Janus in the heart of Rome” 1997 by Pietro Consagra (1920)

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