The Hunt for Paolo Portoghese's 1960 Modernist Capolavoro: Now the Jordanian Embassy in Rome (and going to the dogs)

 

This gorgeous and unusual building is one of the capolavori (masterworks) of renowned Italian starchitect Paolo Portoghese.

We went in search of it last year after Bill had read an article in La Repubblica in which Portoghese had, as the paper put it, given his "J'accuse" to the degradation of modern architecture, an architecture of which he was a leading proponent. As the famed architect put it, "L'architettura moderna lasciata in balia di vandali e degrado" - "Modern architecture has been left to the mercy of vandals and decay." His prime example was his own work, now the Jordanian Embassy in Rome.

The article ran on April 26 and Bill had us out 4 days later in the Piazza Bologna/Nomentana area searching for the building, about which we knew little, not even the address nor what it looked like. After a few false starts (taking photos of buildings with barely a modern touch, thinking they might be the one), we discovered this magnificent structure tucked into an ordinary neighborhood, not too far from one of Rome the Second Time's 15 itineraries in our 2009 book. (Too bad we missed it then!)

Tucked into a street of ordinary palazzi

We also missed Portoghese's passing only one month later, on May 30, 2023, at age 91. So consider this post an homage to him, whose buildings we've admired, among them the famous Rome mosque, which we wrote about 15 years ago, in the first year of this blog.

For security purposes, understandably, 
the embassy doesn't let one get close to
the building.

This gives you some sense of the difficulty
in seeing the whole building.

The palazzo - we now know - was built for a contractor's grandson in 1960, named Casa Papanice, and eventually passed into the hands of the Jordanian Embassy in Rome (whose shields you can see on the building exterior), which has kept it closed to the public, even walled off to the public, and, as Portoghese lamented, in a state of disrepair.

Another glimpse - but you have to
know to look.

Rusting walls

The use of rounded, cantilevered, balconies against vertical striped and molded walls is highly distinctive, and the colored tiles playful. 

Speaking of playful, we also didn't realize the palazzo (before the Jordanians) was featured in several films, including the unfortunately named 1970 "Pizza Triangle" (better in Italian - Dramma della gelosia or the alternative title, Jealousy, Italian Style) by Ettore Scola and starring Monica Vitti, Marcello Mastroianni, and Giancarlo Giannini. A still from the film accompanied the 2023 La Repubblica article.

And, as usual, we found a spot for coffee nearby - at the very friendly "Chill Out Cafe" on viale XXI Aprile, Just steps from via Nomentana.

As long as you are on viale XXI Aprile, walk a few steps and across the street to the immense Fascist-era housing block Palazzo Federici (by Mario De Renzi, 1931-37), where director Scola filmed one of his own masterworks, 1977's Una giornata particolare,with Mastroianni and Sophia Loren, set completely in that apartment block on the day in 1938 when Hitler visited Rome. (Film still below.)

Dianne

The 6-legged dog: the story of Eni's famous logo

Eni's 6-legged dog, on a gas pump at a station on Rome's tangenziale, 2014

If you've motored around Italy for any length of time, you're familiar with one of the nation's most well-known logos: the 6-legged dog--part dog and dragon, actually--that breathes fire.  It's the logo for Eni--Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi--the enormous Italian oil and gas company, founded in February 1953 and headquartered in Rome.

A bit of romance while filling up

The story of the logo is well known, but too good not to tell again.  In 1952, with Eni's founding just around the corner, the company's CEO-to-be, Enrico Mattei, was convinced that the country needed to be sold on the idea that the oil fields of the Po Valley were sufficient to fuel Italy's industrial boom.  To find the right symbol for that effort, he offered 10 million lire as the prize in a competition to design logos for two products: the gasoline known as Supercortemaggiore, after the best known of the oilfields; and Agipgas, the company's gasoline outlets. The jury was composed of some of the most creative artistic minds of the generation: Gio Ponti, Mario Sironi, Mino Maccari and Antonio Baldini.  

The winner of the Supercortemaggiore contest, chosen from over 4,000 entries, was the 6-legged dog, the vision of sculptor, artist, and designer Luigi Broggoni.  Within months it was widely disseminated, appearing in magazines and newspapers, on billboards, and on the company's gas stations.  

An Agip station at Cortemaggiore, mid-1950s

Indeed, it quickly came to stand for a new type of gas station, high modernist in design and offering restaurant services as well as "powerful Italian petrol."  

Ettore Scola--soon to be directing some of Italy's best known films but then writing copy in Agipgas' advertising department--invented the slogan "il cane a sei zampe fedele amico dell'uomo a quattro ruote": the six-legged dog, loyal friend of four-wheeled man.  Eni has suggested that the 6 legs represent the sum of the automobile's 4 wheels and the driver's 2 legs.  

The dog inside the square, 1972

Broggoni's design has been modified at least twice and probably several times.  In 1972, the Unimark agency, working on turning the logo into a trademark, put the dog into a yellow square with rounded corners, a solution that required shortening the dog somewhat.  In a 1998 or later treatment, the dog came out of the box.

Bill

RST Top 40. #34: a Fascist Era Post Office

Two of Rome's masterpieces of architectural geometry are located within a stone's throw, across the street from each other in via Marmorata, at the intersection of the Aventino and Testaccio districts. One is the ancient Piramide Cestia (the Cestia Piramid). The other is the neighborhood post office, a modernist gem designed by architects Adalberto Libera and Mario De Renzi and opened to acclaim in 1935, with Mussolini presiding (see photo above). Architectural scholars Mirella Duca and Filippo Muraia describe the building's elegant interior as "one of the most original spaces constructed in Rome in the 1930s." The via Marmorata post office is on Itinerary 4 in Rome the Second Time.

Libera was only 30 years old when he began working on the project, though he was already well known as a founder of the Movimento Italiano per L'Architettura Razionale (Italian Movement for Rationalist Architecture) and feted for his facade for the monumental Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution (photo at right), which opened in 1932 in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, also a collaborative effort with De Renzi.

Though apparently not a zealous Fascist, Libera's close links with Fascist Party officials allowed him to compete for the regime's choice commissions, including the Palazzo dei Congressi, which he designed for the EUR complex. One of Libera's last works, accomplished with several other architects, was the Olympic Village (see photo at right), which housed athletes competing in the 1960 Rome games (including boxer Cassius Clay, who was seen taking photos of the complex). It is located in the Flaminio district, not far from Parco della Musica.

De Renzi's first commission, for the enormous 1931 Palazzo Federici apartment complex on via Aprile XXI, near Piazza Bologna, has also become one of his best known; it was the setting for Ettore Scola's 1977 film Una Giornata Particolare (A Special Day), starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren in a drama set in Fascist Rome in 1938. The building is on Itinerary 8 in Rome the Second Time.

Bill