Rome's "Other" Pantheon: Julio Lafuente's Little-Known Gem Is Now Decathlon

 

A rather weird interpretive perspective on the Air Terminal Ostiense. The ancient ruins in the foreground certainly don't exist where they are portrayed here, and never did. The composite photo
seems a superficial effort to recuperate certain ancient forms.

Many Romans will have experienced architect Julio Lafuente's Air Terminal Ostiense building, if only because since 2012 it's been the Rome home of Eataly. Eataly may have saved the structure from demolition, but damaged it by converting its enormous, hangar-like space into several department-store like floors. Today, it resembles a post-modern mall. (See photo, right.)

Decathlon's version 

Across the street from Eataly there's a more modest, circular building (see above)--so modest, in fact, that hardly anyone seems to know that it, too, was designed by Lafuente. Indeed, both buildings were designed for the 1990 soccer World Cup. The building's reputation may have suffered from its history. For a while it was occupied by a toy store--Rocco Giocattolli ("Rocco Toy Store"). Later, it was known by the letters that graced its roof--Balocco, a variety store that was a dark, messy, and somehow gloomy place that sold a variety of items nobody would ever want (and that we wrote about in 2016, not knowing the building was by Lafuente). See photos below.

Balocco, 2016. The elevator may have been original to the building.

We're surprised that this smaller building has received so little attention, because it has a back story that puts it at the heart of Rome's history.

Born in Madrid, Spain, Lafuente emigrated as a child to France. As a young man, he studied architecture in Paris, returning to Spain in 1941, when the Germans occupied the French capital and much of the country. Soon after the war ended, Lafuente returned to Spain to continue his studies. His education complete, he intended to travel to the United States, but instead opted for the "Grand Tour" of Italy, aboard a BMW motorcycle.

When he arrived in Rome, his life changed. Just a tourist at that point, he encountered the Pantheon. He was overcome by the building: its shape, and especially the oculus, which bathed the interior in natural light. 

In 1990, he took his Pantheon experience (adding a dash of the Coliseum) and used it to design his own Pantheon. Like the Pantheon, it's round. And, like the Pantheon, it has its own version of the oculus--a glass ceiling (and partial glass walls) that bring in natural light. It's now an outlet for one of the big box stores of sporting goods chain Decathlon, which has restored much of the building's architectural presence. From Pantheon to Decathlon.

Lafuente's 1990 structure. Now (above) a Decathlon store. 

And here's the rest of the story. Much taken with the Pantheon and with the city's roster of fine modern architects, Lafuente decided to make Rome his home. In looking for work, he visited the studios of Ludovico Quaroni, Mario Ridolfi, and the prolific Luigi Moretti (whose best known building may be the Watergate complex, in Washington D.C.). His search ended at the Studio Monaco-Luccichenti, where Lafuente felt most accepted. 

Lafuente had a distinguished career as a creative modernist, designing a number of buildings in Rome and environs as well as the Middle East. Among his best-known works is the Tor Di Valle Hippodrome, designed for the 1960 Rome Olimpiad. [His studio's website is still accessible - his daughter, Clara - still maintains the architectural practice -  and has many more photos of his work.]

We were first introduced to the Spanish-Roman architect in 2006 when there was an exhibition at Istituto Cervantes on Piazza Navona, celebrating his 50 years of his work. Lafuente was there; he was very congenial; and we had a great talk with him that opened our eyes to his works in Rome.

Hippodrome, Tor di Valle, 1959 (now "ex [former] ippodromo Tor di Valle")

Lafuente's 1980 Esso building (below), in the business park Parco dei Medici, will be familiar to anyone traveling the limited-access road to the Fiumicino airport. In June, our driver pointed out the building and explained how much he liked it. We think it's spectacular--one of the most interesting and innovative structures in Rome's orbit (we tried - and failed - to get inside it).

Among Lafuente's other area buildings are the offices of SAIE, on viale della Letturature 30, in EUR; Villa Fiorito (1965), an apartment house in the Aurelia Quartiere (via di villa Betania, 31 [photo below]; the Rome Church of Scientology (off via della Maglianella 375--Google street views suggests that the church is not visible from the road and is likely not open to the public); and the Stabilimento Ferrania (1959), a storied company famous for making the celluloid which the great neorealists used, active until the early 2000s [photo below]. The Rome complex, which Lafuente designed, is at via Appia Nuova 803, now part of Autocentro Balduina (an enormous car sales and service organization, with multiple outlets).

Villa Fiorito, Quartiere Aurelia 

Stabilimento Ferrania, 1959

Julio Garcia Lafuente died in Rome in 2013, at age 92. 

Bill 

Is this Eataly? Nope, it's the Train Station!

We were shocked--in a good way--to discover Mercato Centrale Roma.  We had seen notice of its "Trastevere" night in the newspaper, but our expectations were low (and we never did figure out what the evening had to do with Trastevere).  We thought we might find some folks selling home-made jewelry and stands marketing healthy "bio" products. 

Instead we found an enormous multi-story food and entertainment complex, set inside the already spectacular, high-ceiling architecture of the postwar Stazione Termini. The designers somehow succeeded in keeping the spectacle of the curved brick ceiling while creating a comfortable, sheltered, human-size space below, like Eataly on a smaller scale. 

The American Bar

A great place for dinner (we had a savory cacio e pepe and a raw-artichoke salad), a sandwich, drinks (at American Bar"": a Ribolla Gialla for E5), or just hanging out while waiting for a train.

Our guess is that most of the thousands of people going through the station don't even know the 'mercato' is there, because it's so far from the front of the station (about three short blocks) and only on one side (the south/west side).  Mercato Centrale Roma is best accessed front the sidewalk along via Giolitti.    Bill
And if you are looking for 15 things to do within 200 meters of Termini, try these 2 posts: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2010/07/10-things-to-do-within-200-meters-of.html
and http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2010/08/5-more-things-to-do-within-200-meters.html.

Music on an upper floor 

Balocco: Big-Top Architecture in Rome

Weird inside and out.  It's Balocco, also known as Rocco Balocco, and it's usually described as a toy store, but also as a seller of baby gear and furniture.  You could buy clothes there, too.

If you've been to Eataly in Ostiense, you've seen the funky building, because it's only a few meters from Eataly's main entrance, across the street.

Last spring we sucked it up and went inside (knowing we weren't thinking about buying anything) and took a few photos.  Other-worldly one might say.  Circus architecture (as if that were a thing). 1980s??  Zany postmodernism?

Gloomy interior.  Odd, given the abundance of natural light. 

A Roman friend said this Balocco is one of several in a small chain of stores, and that the chain had been for sale for years and is now on its last legs.  One internet site claims it's closed, another suggests it's open.

Run, don't walk--to Balocco!

Bill

Eataly Opens Rome Store

Thursday, June 21: opening day at Rome’s Eataly.  Opening day, that is, for us ordinary folk; “i big” had their own opening a few days ago: the mayor was there, and the president of the province, and the president of the region, and the founder of the Italian Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, and legendary pop star Gino Paoli, among others.   The pols were there because they can’t resist a spectacle, and Rome’s Eataly, the largest of 19 Eataly’s store-restaurants around the world, is just that: 17 thousand square meters of space, encompassing 23 eating places, 40 areas devoted to teaching about food, 8 spaces where they make mozzarella or fresh pasta or bread, 14,000 products for sale, hundreds of employees, an anticipated 6 million visitors per year.  They were there, too, to celebrate a project brought to fruition entirely with private funds.  Slow Food’s Petrini waxed eloquent on that issue, suggesting that Eataly would be a “permanent Olympics” for the area, without costing the city a cent.

That’s mostly true, but not entirely.  The building that houses Eataly was constructed with public funds.  It opened in 1989/90 as the Air Terminal Ostiense, first to handle the traffic from the 1990 World Cup, then as the place that would connect tourists and others arriving at Rome’s far-away Fiumicino Airport with the city of Rome.  Designed by Spanish architect Julio Lafuente in the grand, open, monumental style of Penn Station (now defunct) by way of the Baths of Caracalla, the postmodern structure fell on bad times from the beginning.  Travelers had difficulty finding taxis, carting their luggage over (or under) the broad set of tracks to the regular railway station, or getting to the Metro; everything was close as the crow flies, but humans with luggage could only wish they had wings.   It was not long before the station was abandoned for the purposes of the Fiumicino trade, and for at least a decade it remained empty.   The more recent chronology is a bit murky: in 2009 and 2010 the Air Terminal was used, unofficially, to house homeless Afghani refugees; in the former year it was purchased by the financiers of Eataly.    (Air Terminal Ostiense gets a brief mention in Rome the Second Time (the book) at page 68.)

While the powerful and yet playful exterior of Lafuente’s Air Terminal remains as he designed it, little—indeed, nothing—remains of the interior.  The enormous, open halls of the original have been filled in, 3 floors added. 

The spectacle remains, but it is of a different sort than Lafuente had in mind: rather than the spectacle of wondrous space, we have the spectacle of the 21^st century department store, the spectacle of goods and services, of fashion and design, or products and packaging, of color and choice. 

This is the spectacle of the worldwide furnishing giant IKEA, of an engaging, accessible, and sensible capitalism, there to make money, yes, but also to bring us what we need, what is best for us. 

Eataly, of course, is all about food.  But not just any food, and not just any Italian food.  Eataly comes with a 9-point Manifesto (perhaps 10 would seem too contrived).  Among its points: food unites people across lines of social class; high quality food improves one’s general quality of life; consumers should know the story, the history, behind the foods they consume; and high quality foods should be available at affordable prices (indeed, a recent advertisement promises, “At Eataly high quality costs half.”)  There’s a lot of emphasis on the importance of “what we put inside our bodies,” as opposed to the things outside, and lots of talk about their “passion” for providing  people with good food and how vital it is that people be “passionate” about what they eat.  Substitute “home furnishings” for “food” and you’ve pretty much got IKEA. 

Coffee bar

Fruits and vegetables, not a priority

There’s lots to think about here.  We know there’s some truth in the claim that the tensions of social class can melt away in the pleasures of a good meal.  But one of Eataly’s markets is the very affluent consumer.  At least one of its fourth-floor restaurants caters to the very rich, and posters announce series of 12 wine-tastings for 500 Euro.  It’s hard to disagree with the idea that what we put in our bodies is important.  But one of Eataly’s many food outlets sells pizza and another specializes in “fritti”—that is, deep fried foods, shrimp, calamari and meatballs (delicious – we know, we tried them) and other treats—that are very Roman but would seem low on the nutritional scale.   Most of the wines sold at Eataly contain suphites.  There’s a huge section devoted to the fatty meats—ham, mortadella, sausage—that Italians devour.   And the fruits and vegetables department, where the produce is displayed under canvas tents designed to suggest an old-fashioned market, is tiny.   

Lots of choice

We can’t really speak to the issue of whether the food available at Eataly is of “high quality,” or of higher quality than one can get elsewhere in Rome (that, after all, would be a sensible standard).  Moreover, how would one prove such a claim?  Mayor Gianni Alemanno, the conservative ex-thug not known for his cultured sensibilities, had no such doubts.  Eataly, he announced, is “launching a model where one says no to consumerism, but yes to the quality of what one consumes.”    

Eataly's shopping carts and fashionably-dressed
shopper

We have one more concern, possibly the most significant for Rome, and it emerges directly from the Eataly’s advertising.  “Already,” says the company, “many Romans have taken to doing all their grocery shopping at Eataly” (hanno presso a fare la spesa completa da Eataly).  If we thought that say, half of Eataly’s sales would be to tourists and foreigners, that would be one thing.  But we found only one sign of any kind in English, the common language of Rome tourism; everything’s in Italian—a good indication that that’s the key market.  If most of those customers are Romans, we can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to the local meat markets, salumerie (essentially delis), and neighborhood markets that are now just holding their own against a growing number of small, chain grocers.  At bottom, Eataly is just a “big box” store—an attractive and enticing one to be sure—ready, like all big-box stores everywhere, to destroy the little guys.  That’s what they do. 

Eataly as spectacle

That's our view--and we're stickin' to it.  But it's a long-term perspective.  In the short term, we're less critical, more positive.  We like IKEA, and we've shopped there with some success and been proud of our self-assembly skills.  We can't resist the spectacle, even if it's just capitalism at its shiny new best. 

Supervisor (left) and employees try to figure
out how to serve us our fritti.  Opening day
jitters

We enjoyed our visit, marveling at the hundreds of brands of olive oil, figuring out when things were open (the restaurants close, Italian style, from 3 to 7 pm), impressed by the on-site beer-making, digging into the philosophy of the place, observing the young employees learning their jobs and the system, surprised that one could purchase "sfuso" wine (from the barrel, at E2 per bottle), taken by the rich, complex, postmodern interior of the place, photographing the photographers photograping the spectacle.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. 

Bill



How the Air Terminal Ostiense interior should have looked

We point out that Eataly was in 8 other cities in Italy before coming to Rome, and that in addition to its highly successful New York City operation, it has 7, soon to be 9 locations in Tokyo. Coming soon: Chicago, Los Angeles. 

Some sense of Lafuente's volume remains



Eating Ethnic: Rome's Kebab

We have been coming to Rome regularly for 17 years, and not until our last visit did we eat a Kebab. I had been longing to try the Roman version of this Mediterranean/Middle Eastern fast food, and one night, when the trattorias were closing and it seemed to late for the standard plate of pasta, I succeeded in muscling Dianne into Asterix 2, on via Ostiense. (You shouldn't have difficult finding a Kebab shop in Rome, but if you do, there's a website that lists them all--and even rates the Top 10: http://digilander.libero.it/romakebab/

The Kebab resembles the Greek "gyro," the latter so-named because the meat gyrates/turns on a spit as it is cooked.  But the dozens of Kebab shops in Rome are owned not by Greeks but by Egyptians, Turks, and Kurds, and the sliced meat for which the gyro is known--lamb--has been replaced in Rome by veal or, in most cases, a combination of veal and turkey. Kebab Valenziani (via Augusto Valenziani, 14), an Egyptian shop [see photo],
serves three meats from separate spiedi: beef, veal, and chicken. Most shops offer two kinds of bread: an Arab bread often made on site, and the familiar Italian Ciabatta. Condiments vary, and include hot sauce, sesame sauce, yogurt, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, olives, onions, green peppers, carciofi and, perhaps in a concession to the Greek tradition, feta cheese.

We ordered ours with "everything" and were aghast at the size of the thing. One serves two, and seated on stools in the cramped shop, we passed the Kebab back and forth about 10 times, along with a Diet Coke. Fresh, great range of flavors, healthy ingredients.
A starving writer could live on one of these a day. Although some will prefer to "portare via" (take out, literally carry away) their Kebabs, we recommend dining in, enjoying the colorful interiors that many of the shops present. The photo is of Asterix 2 (we think).  You'll see it looks nothing like Eataly, which opened in Rome this summer.  Nor does it have the art to go with food that we savor in EUR at Caffe' Palombini, but it has it's own ambiance, one could say.

Sadly, the Kebab is understood as an "ethnic" food and has begun to suffer from the anti-immigrant sentiment currently infecting Italian politics. Berlusconi's center-right national government has been supporting local efforts to ban ethic foods. One such effort is underway in Lucca--the site of 4 Kebab outlets--where the city fathers voted to ban any new ethic food shops, and another has been launched in Milan, with support from the conservative (and anti-immigrant) Northern League.  These are no doubt the same folks who find Europe's largest mosque - in Rome - disturbing.

Minister of Agriculture Luca Zaia, asked if he had ever eaten a Kebab, replied, "No--and I defy anyone to prove the contrary. I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto."

Our advice, Luca, is try one.

Bill