APARTMENT HOUSE OF THE COOPERATIVE THE TURTLE

PALAZZINA DELLA COOPERATIVA LA TARTARUGA

Via Innocenzo X 25 - Monteverde

1951/54 Ludovico Quaroni (1911/87) and Carlo Aymonino (1926/2010)

Some aesthetic and functional innovations of this building stand out for their originality, as the extensive use of brown bricks in the façades or the porch on the ground floor accessible to vehicles

“The desire to transfer in the building types for the middle-class some of the main themes of the architectural research related to the Association for Organic Architecture was already apparent in the Roman buildings for apartments by Mario Ridolfi, Bruno Zevi and Luigi Piccinato. (...) This project by Ludovico Quaroni, in collaboration with the young Carlo Aymonino, moves in the same direction, fitting in that 'neo-realist' vein which with the Neighborhood INA-Casa Tiburtino IV (to which they both participated) had its most radical expression. The open structure, the articulation of the plan and of the volume, the force of the overall image, the particular use of hard and rough materials, which anticipates in some way some of the characters of the so-called 'Brutalism', are the issues around which the architectural design of this building was planned” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

CAPITOLINE MUSEUMS

MUSEI CAPITOLINI

Piazza del Campidoglio

Since 1471, the oldest museum in the world open to the public

It was an idea of Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere (1471/84) who donated to the people four bronze statues and displayed them publicly. So the modern concept of "museum" was born

The museum expanded with Leo X Medici (1513/21) and Pius V Ghislieri (1566/72)

Clement XII Corsini (1730/40) in 1734 inaugurated the Palazzo Nuovo (New Palace) built specifically as a museum, another new thing: it was the first time a building was built to house works of art visible to everyone, not just to the private owners of the building and their guests

It was expanded again with Benedict XIV Lambertini (1740/58) and between 1748 and 1750 the Pinacoteca Capitolina (Art Gallery) was opened, the oldest public collection of paintings in the world. The British Museum in London was opened in 1753 and the Louvre in Paris only in 1793

There were other additions after 1870 when Rome became the capital of Italy

In 2005 the last renovation called "Grande Campidoglio" (Great Capitol Hill) was completed. It lasted nearly a decade and was designed by the Dardi and Einaudi Studios, and, for the Roman Garden, by Carlo Aymonino (1926/2010)

A very articulated museum was therefore created, with the acquisition of new exhibition spaces, the reorganization of some areas and the reopening of closed sections with new exhibitions

The museum was also enlarged with the public opening of the Tabularium, connected to the other buildings through the Gallery Junction, the restoration of Palazzo Caffarelli and the acquisition of Palazzo Clementino, formerly used for offices

With the latest additions the museum cover an area of about 10,000 m² (108,000 square feet)

In 2008 it was visited by 452,232 people, still too few for one of the most beautiful and exciting museums in the whole world