In Search of the 1950s: The Aqua-Blue Building on via Bari

 

We lived this year just a few blocks from one of my favorite modernist Rome buildings. Romans might call it "particolare"--one of a kind, sui generis, unique, maybe odd. You'll find it at via Bari 5, corner of via Rovigo, just a few blocks uphill along via Catania from Piazzale delle Provincie, one of two large circular piazze in the Piazza Bologna area. 

Same building, via Bari 5, from the less than 90 degree corner with via Rovigo -
 a very different look, no camera tricks employed.

he palazzina, in the mid-century-modern style, was constructed between 1958, when Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire" was #1on the US charts, and 1961, when teens were doing the "Twist" to Chubby Checker's hit song. In architecture, post-modernism had yet to assert itself as the next wave, but architects everywhere were experimenting with forms that went beyond the severe rectilinear modernism of the 1930s and 1940s (a good example of that sort of modernism is Rome's university--La Sapienza, nearby). The late 1950s and 1960s were also decades in which architects and planners experimented with buildings and other structures that were elevated--in the US, "skyways"--elevated highways--were the rage, and in Rome, planners decided to place the "sopraelevata" [1966-1975] down the center of Scalo San Lorenzo (a 15-minute walk from via Bari 5). 

Above, the sopraelevata from the street.

Architect Renato Valle framed the via Bari building in aqua-blue glass (now an iconic 1950s color), and used the less-than-90-degree corner at via Rovigo to give his structure an angular shape that defined the rectilinear tradition. And it's elevated. Today, under the building, there's a gas station. Significantly, the building is owned by, and houses offices of, Enerpetroli, a company that operates 150 gas stations in central Italy. 

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find other information about architect Valle. If you can contribute, please do!

Bill 

A Failed Underpass in EUR: a Brief History of Over and Under

This underground passageway is shuttered now, and probably has been for years, useful only for collecting trash and attracting graffiti. 

The "sopraelevata," an elevated intersection
on Rome's east side, completed in 1975

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  In the 1950s and 1960s, Rome was one of many cities to experiment with high-level roadways (the "sopraelevata," connecting Viale Castrense and Via Prenestina on Rome's east side--photo at right) and pedestrian underpasses, like the one under Viale America, in the suburb of EUR (photo above). 

The purpose was the same.  As traffic density increased, the elevated highways would carry vehicles over pedestrians and dense urban intersections, and the underpasses would carry pedestrians under busy streets full of cars and scooters.  In EUR, the tunnel under Viale America was designed to allow thousands of EUR workers safe access to a Metro stop on the south side of the wide street. 

The Buffalo Skyway, opened in 1955

Over and under projects could be very successful.  For example, in our hometown of Buffalo, the Skyway, completed in 1955, successfully ferried workers and other commuters over canals, a river, and a clogged lift bridge. 

But by and large these efforts to deal with traffic's consequences proved unpopular.  Just about everyone but us wants to tear down the Skyway, despite the wonderful driving experience it provides.  Seattle, adds Dianne, after much controversy is tearing down its waterfront "viaduct," as we Westerners call these things.  We don't know precisely why the EUR underground was closed, but we can imagine.  Over time, the passage became intimidating: graffiti, the smell of urine, predictable (for Rome) accumulations of trash, the threat of crime.  For some, a dash across the street was preferable to descending and ascending long flights of stairs.  And in Rome, the descent from sunshine into the unnatural and relative darkness of a tunnel, must have seemed not only odd, but contrary. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Bill