The Experimental House in Fregene - in Celebration of the Bauhaus's 100th Anniversary

This amazing Brutalist construction in the seaside town of Fregene, outside Rome, is not to be missed. Architect Giuseppe Perugini - who worked with 20th-century Italian masters such as Adalberto Libera and was fascinated with early computer-generated designs - designed this structure in the late 1960s as his summer home. His architect wife (Uga De Plaisant) and son (Raynaldo Perugini) also contributed their talents. Called "Casa Sperimentale" ("Experimental House"), it became a sort of salon for artists and architects in the 1970s and 1980s.

Only a few materials were used - reinforced concrete (hence the Brutalist name -  ‘beton brut’ – raw concrete in French), steel and glass. We saw letters and Roman numerals on the concrete and learned later that at one time Perugini contemplated putting the pieces together in different configurations; so they were each identified.

The stairway was designed to be drawn up, leaving the house almost suspended over a pool.

Raymondo recalled: "Being all three architects, it was a bit of a family toy, at the time of realization each of us proposed solutions and started discussions ... it was a sort of great laboratory ... imagine a scale model!"

Round pieces (perhaps a bathroom or kitchen here at right) and outbuildings (a "gazebo" at left)  add some contrast and softness to the dominant horizontal and vertical shapes (among the weeds now).

The house, also called "Casa Albero" or "Tree House," has fallen into disrepair since the older Perugini's death in 1995. It has had some fame with the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus (Walter Gropius, 1919), and there is talk of saving it, but I don't have my hopes up.

The property is now more a canvass for graffiti artists than anything else. See the guest house at right.

One can see the house only online or by trespassing (one of us is more willing to do that than the other - you can guess which).

The exterior property wall - designed appropriately - surrounding the parcel of land looked impenetrable (left), but we found an opening in one of the gates.

More photos and video here (text in Italian - use your Google translator if you don't read it).

Bill cited the house in his post on a Rome building.

Casa Sperimentale address: Via Porto Azzurro, 57, Fregene.

1999 statue, emphasizing the (to me)
charlatan Padre's hands. He supposedly
had the stigmata, but then why did he
buy chemicals at his local hardware store?

Besides the seaside attractions of Fregene, which we've enjoyed in prior years (although our Rome friends criticized then our choice of beach towns), the town has a nice cafe' or two, an immense pine grove park, and the requisite statue to Padre Pio.

And thanks to blog reader Giulia, who rents a home in Rome on VRBO, for suggesting this locale in 2016. Sorry it took us 3 years to get here!

Dianne

The town is calm before the summer season heats up.

Summer in Rome: Beating the Heat

We're going to Rome in the summer; what should we do? That's a question we're often asked.

Being a northerner (born and raised in Seattle), the heat of Italian cities in July and August is, frankly, more than I can appreciate. "Follow the Romans, go to the coast or the mountains!" is usually my reply. As the Italians say, "tutti al mare" - everyone to the sea.

But there will be plenty of tourists and a few Romans left in the city next month. Some love the feel of August, hot as it is, with the non-tourist parts of the city emptied. Nanni Moretti (Italy's Woody Allen) captured this in his award-winning film, "Caro Diario" ("Dear Diary"). Watching him scooter along empty streets almost makes me want to do that too. See a clip from the Vespa YouTube site.

And, Rome is fabulously full of activities in the summer. So if you find yourself in or near Rome in July and August, and you don't want to join the crowds at the local beaches (tho' that's not too bad either - see our post on Fregene on May 28), get off the beaten tourist track and head for one of the wonderful events - bars on the Tiber (Tevere), plays in the parks, opera in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, jazz on the hilltops. It just doesn't get any better. Check out the website http://www.inromenow.com/ for their complete schedule and description of offerings under "Estate Roma" (Summer Rome). Note that anything not listed as being in English (plays, readings, films) very likely is not.

For the evening, here are two of our favorites:

First, stroll along the Tevere, sampling the food, drinks, and wares for sale, and of course don't miss the great people watching. At right is a photo of the scene early in the morning, long after the activities have ceased. You can reach this part of the Tevere by stairways from Trastevere (near Piazza Trilussa, near the Tiber Island [on both sides of the Tevere], near Viale Trastevere, etc.).
[Thanks to inromenow for the night photo; mine all disappeared into digital heaven.]

Second, go to jazz at Villa Celimontana. After an uphill walk of a couple blocks "in back" of the Coliseum, you'll find this hilltop park turned into a seasonal outdoor jazz venue is magical. We have heard great jazz here, from the big names to the unknowns. One night we found ourselves listening to very good Slovakian jazz, complete with a buffet provided by the Slovakian Embassy - all free. Another night we heard a stunning jazz duel between pianist Stefano Bollani and accordionist Antonello Salis. An upcoming event bound to be sold out is Bollani with one of the country's best trumpeters, Enrico Rava, on August 6. Villa Celimontana can be a bit difficult to figure out. There are a variety of bars and restaurants surrounding the stage and the limited seating area. Ideally you can go twice and figure out where you want to sit and how to make a reservation for the second time. Or, arrive early and get a seat in the chairs in front of the stage or on the steps leading to the restaurant areas. As in most things Italian, you can find a spot somewhere. It's impossible not to enjoy yourself here if you have any feeling for jazz and night music!

For the daytime, we recommend lying in your air conditioned hotel room and hitting the air conditioned museums--not exactly off the tourist track. But be sure to save your energy for the best part of summer in Rome - the evenings.

As the Italians say, buon estate - "good summer" - Dianne

Grace when you need it: Italy's small shrines

Italy is a Catholic country, and we're reminded of it at every turn. There are over 300 churches in Rome, and hundreds more shrines on, it sometimes seems, every corner. It's easy to become inured to the ubiquitous symbols. Yet, there are shrines that make us stop and pause, and here are a few of them.




Almost every mountain top in Italy (and sometimes even just the top of a hill) has a cross. It's often the only way we know we actually got to the top, since usually there are no other markers. The one below, which we've posted previously, is particularly poignant. I thought an out-of-sorts teen had bent some of the metal around this cross, but the metal turns out to be a part of a small military plane that crashed into Monte Pellechia on Christmas Day, 1960.





The Virgin Maryshrine at the top of this blog would appear to be like hundreds of others. But this one made me stop because it is lit by a modern, eco-friendly fluorescent bulb. In the small hill town of Segni.


Shrines where people have died are increasingly common in the U.S., as well as in Italy. This one is beautifully arranged and maintained--complete with cigarette lighter, and it touched my heart. In the seaside town of Fregene.






Statues, usually to Mary, but not always, often show up on the beginning portion of a hike, and usually bless the mountains, the mountain town and, we hope, the hikers. On this hike, we went from the town of Sonnino to the top of the Lepini mountains' Monte della Fate (Mountain of the Fairies), part of a brigands hide-out area in the 18th and 19th centuries. The vista overlooks the Tyrrhenian Sea and Circeo. Here we were protected by not one but two Marys--one at the beginning of the hike (with an apparent attempt to shield her from vandals) and one at the top.














We welcome additions to touching and unusual shrines and shrine locations. Dianne

Cupa Fregene

At dinner Tuesday night, when we told our close friends that we had spent Sunday at the beach town of Fregene, they were incredulous. How, they implied, could the veterans of Rome the Second Time have made such a grave error in judgment? The beach was "black," they said, a comment that referred, we hasten to add, to the color of the sand. And it was black, and also, therefore, they said, unusually hot, maybe unbearably hot. And it was hot.

Fregene had been recommended to us by our husband-and-wife landlords, who said it was nifty. And by a favorite Italian writer, Fulvio Abbate, who described the town as having "qualcosa di ombroso, di cupo, di sinistro, di casuale" (something shady, dark, sinister, accidental--in other words, beach noir). Fellini and Moravia had summer homes there.

Mainly we just wanted to go to the beach. But even once in Fregene, having driven the white line to get around miles of barely-moving cars, getting onto the beach proved not the easiest thing to do. We had found a nice parking place for the scooter on what was obviously the beach road, but it proved too nice--big enough for a car if we moved, some girls in a car made clear--and so we moved, then got into what passed for beach outfits, and set out on the road, looking for a way onto that elusive beach, held captive, we soon realized, by a fence of private clubs. We thought we might have found access at a place marked "Comune di Roma," but efforts to appear inconspicuous (reading the bulletin board) brought only attention--and the word that this beach club was reserved for the military. Around the side ("al fianco"), however, we struck paydirt or, as we said, black sand: a beach that was "libero" (literally "free," but meaning "public"), and into "Cocco Loco" we went. Loco, our friends had noted rather critically, is not an Italian word.

Beach activities are much the same worldwide--small boys digging in the sand, Dads flying the kites brought for their kids, adolescents posturing, women in their forties holding their tummies in, young men driving small rented boats recklessly--all, frankly, fascinating. Dianne is shown here looking out to sea, perhaps pondering the infinite.

Retreating to the beach-style bar, we found a bench from which to sip our white wines and observe the elaborately tattooed young men and the barely dressed young women.

Later, several blocks inland, we wandered through Fregene's most famous attraction--the "pini monumentali"--a grove of enormous pines planted by Pope Clement IX in 1667 and, in 1920, declared a national monument. We found another glass of wine, took a picture of a hotel that looked to us as if it had once been a World War II bunker--and headed home. We never did find Fregene's dark side--except, that is, for the sand. Bill