RST Top 40: # 17. Richard Meier's Suburban Jubilee Church

In these dog days of summer, we're taking the opportunity to re-post the following piece.  Originally posted in 2010, it is the most popular item we've ever published--some 15,000 page views. 


The Jubilee Church in suburban Rome is perhaps U.S. architect Richard Meier’s finest work. Not easy to get to using public transportation, but well worth the trek for those in Rome a second time, and therefore it hits our Top 40 list at #17. (See more on Meier in the links at the end of this post.)

Dives in Misericordia (“Rich in Mercy” – the church’s religious name, taken from Pope John Paul II’s second encyclical) is set in the Tor Tre Teste working class neighborhood of Rome, as that Pope wanted. And it is one of “50 churches for Rome” commissioned for the church’s Jubilee year (celebrating the 2,000th anniversary of Christ’s birth - jubilee years come every 50 years, but clearly 2,000 was a special one), although it was not completed until 2003. (See also Sartogo and Grenon's Santo Volto Church in Marconi.)

Meier’s church is in essence 3 enormous curved sail forms, a shape unusual for him. The sacred part of the church is marked by the wonderfully organic and curved spaces these sails produce, while in the administrative part Meier returns to more familiar rectangular shapes, that we see, for example, in his Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Modern materials are a hallmark of this church project, including a coated cement that is self-cleaning, which was a delight for the white-obsessed Meier. Meier won the competition for the church over 5 other internationally famous architects, including Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman and Santiago Calatrava. Meier’s church is a testament to the Vatican’s good judgment, we think. See the New York Times' review of the church's consecrration: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/arts/vatican-s-modernist-moment-church-designed-richard-meier-consecrated-rome.html

We’ve also put directions on getting to the church via public transport at the end of this post.

The Vatican and Meier have been criticized for placing this modernist monument in a working class neighborhood, and basically cramming it into a space enclosed on 3 sides by unattractive apartment buildings and shops. But clearly this is what the Pope had in mind – lifting the neighborhood. As Meier recently said in response to questions about controversy over his works in Rome, “in Italy… unlike in [the U.S.]…architecture and politics are so intertwined.”

We think a trip to the Tor Tre Teste neighborhood is enlightening in many ways. You’ll see how ordinary Romans live. You’ll see magnificent architecture soaring in the midst of the commonplace – what could be more representative of Rome? If you walk a few yards from the church, you’ll also be able to amble through a park with a preserved ancient aqueduct – again, very Roman.

Meier’s other building in Rome is the “museum” and display of the 9th century BC Ara Pacis, the Roman altar to peace (“pacis”) - in this case meaning Roman conquest. It was the subject of even more controversy when it opened in 2006 (and there's still controversy - see Bill's post on a tunnel to be built along the Tevere next to the Ara Pacis). The right-wing picketed (we were there to cross the lines); the new right-wing mayor Alemanno called for Meier’s building to be torn down (or moved to the suburbs). Like everything else in Rome, these nutsy ideas, while stoking the culture wars ($24 million! To an American! It’s just a white box! It’s for the elite!), are now little more than vapors in the air. We didn’t put the Ara Pacis on our RST Top 40 list because it belongs on the First Time list – it’s the 3rd most visited site in Rome.

Dianne
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(For more on Meier, see Bill's post on Rome's "Starchitects", Piazzo Augusto Imperatore, where the Ars Pacis is located - which comes in at No. 9 on RST's Top 40, and further afield the Rome/Michael Graves connection..  Generally for architectural comparisons of the highest order in Rome, see our recent post on MAXXI versus MACRO.)

Transportation:
Best option: get a friend to drive you;

second, take a taxi (but it will be very costly);

third - public transport as follows:
In back (on the South side; right as you're facing the terminal) of the main train station in Rome (Stazione Termini) is a commuter train line. You can take Bus 105 or 105L from the front of Termini to this place (3 stops) - or just ask and walk the several blocks back there. Then take the "train" labelled GARDINETT (for Gardinetti) 16 stops - the stop you want is "Tobagi"; the train runs every 5 minutes in normal hours. Walk about 50 yards to the bus stop "Tobagi" and catch Bus 556 (Gardenie) for 12 stops (to Tovaglieri/Ermoli); the 12 stops aren't that long, really just winding through the suburban high rises. The bus runs every 15 minutes. When you get off, you're 100 yards from the church and you should be able to see it or find it by asking for the church.

TO RETURN: Go back to where you got Bus 556 and take it again, going in the same direction you had been to arrive (Gardenie) - not back; take it 11 stops to Togliatti/Molfetta; go to the Tram stop Togliatti (this is a real tram) and take Tram 14 back to Termini.
Caveat: we have not taken public transportation; I'm relying on the City's transportation site for these directions. Don't ask me why the ways to/from are different. If you're a walker, you could walk to/from the Train or to/from the Tram and not have to go to and from different ways. Just a suggestion. Good luck on this!

Obamamania Italian style

Russians may be cool about him, but Italians are crazy for Obama, in our experience.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (he of the gaffes and young women scandals) takes every opportunity to be photographed with the U.S. President, as in this picture from April's G20 summit... yeah, that's Berlusconi in the middle with the thumb's up sign behind Obama's head, or as someone said "amateur hour at the G20". (For background on Berlusconi, see Frederika Randall's recent online piece in The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090629/randall) Berlusconi also famously referred to Obama as "abbronzato," which means "tan." Not to be outdone by his own gaffe, Berlusconi later said he would arrive at the White House also "abbronzato."

Right now, of course, Obama is in L'Aquila, the large city devastated by the earthquake this Spring, meeting with the G-8. So photos of the U.S. President are everywhere.

We encounter Obamamania everywhere we go in Rome, and not just among our leftist friends.

The woman who runs the long-established trattoria "Il Vascello" in Monteverde Vecchio has a collection of Obama items, and can't stop talking about him... in the same loud and enthusiastic voice she uses to tell you the daily specials.

The co-owner and barrista at the wine bar, "Il Baccoco" in Trastevere, tested us out first. "Obama?..." he asked, when his voice implying a question. When we indicated yes, we are Obama supporters, he sped up his Italian and waxed well, if not eloquent, at least enthusiastic, about our relatively new President.

And, perhaps more surprising, the men behind the counter at our small, local P.O. in Monteverde Nuovo, are hardly disgruntled postal workers. When they discovered I was sending a letter to the U.S., they started quizzing me about Obama and debating about whether the "speranza" or hope would really turn into action--they hoped it would.

We still have a small roll of Obama campaign stickers ("I voted early for Barack Obama") from our 6 weeks last Fall working on the campaign in the suburbs of Cleveland. We doled them out to some of these Obama fans, who were clearly elated by the souvenirs.

A question we have for these Obamaphiles is whether they also support their right-wing Prime Minister Berlusconi and Rome Mayor Alemanno. Hard to tell.

But for now, we'll enjoy the enthusiasm of the Italians for a U.S. President (for a change).

Dianne

Roma Rinasce

The poster reads "Rome Reborn," and it's everywhere in the city, intended to celebrate the first year of Gianni Alemanno's mayoralty. But the poster says more than that. As today's La Repubblica implies, Alemanno's pose--that upraised jaw, the Roman salute (albeit with the left hand)--are suggestive of another right-wing politician, of considerably more fame and infamy. And the flag covering Alemanno's hand is that of the Fiamma Tricolore, not the Italian flag, but that of the Tricolor Flame, a neo-fascist political party that recognizes its debt to the ideas of Benito Mussolini and his Black Shirts.

We would add that Alemanno's position, with the Forum at his back, is another link to Fascism, for it was Mussolini who spearheaded the "sventramento" (demolition, clearance) of precisely that area, in order to associate his regime with the power and glory of imperial Rome.

The poster's pitch is hardly subtle, and we can only assume that there are plenty of Romans who respond with enthusiasm to it--probably the least educated of the electorate, and elements of the Italian working class, exasperated by liberalism's failures and weaknesses and venting their frustrations by abandoning the left. The American working class rejected the Democratic Party in 1968 (electing Richard Nixon), and the "Reagan Democrats" followed suit.

We hope the election of Alemanno doesn't prove to be a signal of the beginning of decades of right-wing dominance.

Bill

Liberation Day in Rome

April 25 – today is Liberation Day, the day Italy celebrates its liberation from the Nazis. On this date in 1945, Milan and the other large cities of the north were considered liberated by (most agree) the partisans, as southern Italy already had been by the Allies.

But it might better be called Contestation Day. Over the years, the date has been reserved for leftist celebrations. But the right increasingly wants to contest the leftists’ view of Italy’s liberation, and specifically to contest the positive participation of partisans, communists, and whether these two groups overlap. Each year we watch the Italian politicians take strange - and often uncomfortable (even for them) - positions as the date nears. With the right wing in firm control of the nation (Prime Minister Berlusconi) and even cities as historically left as Rome (Mayor Alemanno), the issues dominate the media: who “controls” April 25 or takes center stage; did the partisans really liberate Italy, are there good and bad partisans, were the partisans all communists?

A few years ago we read about the possibility that Berlusconi wouldn’t even publicly acknowledge April 25; then – hot news! - he bussed a former partisan on the cheek. This year the headline-grabbing topic was where Berlusconi would present himself on April 25, and whether he and the right-wing parties would appropriate the holiday. One proposed setting for Berlusconi today was Onna—the small town near L’Aquila that was completely destroyed by the recent earthquake and, more to the point of April 25, was the scene of Nazi execution of 17 civilians in 1944.

The (acknowledged by most) diplomatic President (a largely figurehead position) of the country is former communist Napolitano, who manages to bring the meaning of the day back in focus. Don’t try to divide the partisans or minimize their role, he says.

A poster put up by Italy’s now small Communist Party announces: “without the Left, without Communists, there’s no liberation” (see photo).

The intensity of feeling that surrounds April 25 reveals how central the events of World War II remain for Italians, left and right. In contrast, Americans generally agree on the meaning of that conflict, yet remain bitterly divided over the war in Vietnam and, indeed, over the meaning and interpretation of the political, social, and cultural upheaval known as the “sixties.”

Rome the Second Time is the only guidebook we know of that discusses the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943-44. One of the itineraries takes the Rome visitor to the site of several resistance actions, including Porta San Paolo, where the initial resistance was staged and today’s Rome Liberation Day activities unfold; via Rasella, where a German column was bombed by the partisans; and the SS torture chambers of via Tasso. Our book also takes you to the Fosse Ardeatine on the outskirts of Rome, where 335 men were executed and their bodies covered up in these Ardeatine caves, now a deeply moving memorial to the senseless murder of civilians.

Dianne