DAY 10: Collage City of Rome

11.07.2014

Casa di Cola di Rienzo Deatil

Another fascinating example of how the city of Rome has been growing and overgrowing itself in every aspect, from urban to political, is the so-called Casa di Cola di Rienzo. This building is an end of an urban block redeveloped by Mussolini, and the only remain from the Middle Ages in this area, that the dictator chose to keep. Across the street from the Temple of Portunis and the Temple of Hercules Victor, the early 11^th century Casa di Cola di Renzo is shadowed by glorious architecture from the time of the Empire. But it is telling us much more.  

DAY 9: Rebuilding of rebuilt

10.07.2014

Santa Maria Maggiore. Photo:MM

While trying to define “formal” in regard to ancient approach to Rome, it should be said that the city of Rome is very much not the ideal city envisioned by Emperors and their architects in Antiquity. Wherever Romans were building cities from scratch, they were building grid-based urbanities. It could be argued, in that sense, that the attempts to formalise Rome have been made throughout history from the Empire to the rule of the Popes, later monarchs and republicans.

THE BRIEF: Moments of Rome

The history of stitching is exploring the nature of never-ending overlay of Rome as a city and it is searching for paradox and informality in its historical aggregation.

The challenge is to make a distinction between interventions which aim to formalize the urban order even though the way they are executed appears as an informal intervention. Mussolini’s insertion of Via dei Fori Imperiali which establishes a straight corridor between the Colosseum and Piazza Venezia (1924 – 1932) is clearly an attempt to formalize the city. This intervention was, on the other hand, done through imposition of a street on top of a series of Imperial Forums, splitting them in half and creating a strange set of leftovers in the most ad-hoc fashion. 

In front of you is a small selection of urban details, photographs taken in July 2014 in Rome. They are a piece of a wider research about forms of architectural survival. Between definitions of formal and informal transformation of Rome, “stitching” is defined as a never ending, historical, process of change, physical, social and political.

5 moments of Rome...