Casa Balla: A Visit to the Home of the Futurist Artist - Home in Rome Series #5

Above, a cramped hallway with every surface painted, and light fixtures designed by Balla.

Among its many contemporary wonders, Rome has the home of Futurist artist Giacomo Balla, an apartment Balla made into one of his great works of art, thanks to the contemporary national art gallery MAXXI which restored and manages it. Every surface of the multi-room apartment in the della Vittoria neighborhood (just north of Prati and the Vatican) is covered with the great 20th-century Futurist's art.

The Turin-born Balla moved into the home in June1929, when he was 58, with his wife and two daughters, both painters. They transformed the "clerical" apartment into a work of art in which they all lived until their deaths, the last in 1994.

Every inch is designed and decorated, from chairs and rugs (left) to lights (below).

Clothes, dishware, cabinets, door handles - nothing escaped Balla's desire to shape it, design it, paint it. Below, a small desk and dresser under a loft bed, with Rome the Second time authors taking a selfie in the mirror.

Right, the "Studiolo Rosso" (Little Red Study) where Balla wrote. It's not for the claustrophobic among us.

Left, even clothes were fashioned to the Futurist's design, clothes and the closet doors - inside and out.

When we visited in April of last year, the salone was set up as the artist's studio (above). It also hosted an exhibition of Balla works on paper. The design of furniture - chairs, tables, desks - is, of course, all Futurist.

We've put a few more photos at the end of the post - but you will want to see this for yourself. It's extraordinary. Don't miss it.

Casa Balla's schedule is somewhat unpredictable. It was open this past December and January, and is open now (from March 1) through April 27. After that, who knows? One can visit the home only with a small group tour (in Italian but likely some people will speak some English and it's worth it even if you can't understand the tour leader's talk - a small and informative dual-language pamphlet is available), and advance tickets from MAXXI, get them here: https://casaballa.maxxi.art/en/ - that's the English site. If you scroll down a bit, a bubble will open up at the upper right for conversion to Italian ("IT", if in Italian, do the same and you'll see "EN" for English). Thursday through Sunday, 10-12 and 4-6 on the hour. Interestingly, the building has an elevator (the apartment is on a fairly high floor), but it's generally not available to MAXXI visitors (I suppose they aren't paying for their share of the elevator).

Balla joins our "Home in Rome Series," the other 4 of which were posted in 2011 and 2013: Goethe, de Chirico, Pirandello, and Moravia.

Dianne

A lovely pink and aqua bathroom.

Bottles that would make Morandi proud.

The elevator you can't ride.

The Fascist-era entrance to the building, with no hint of what's inside.

Palazzo Barberini Opens Up with Show Juxtaposing Renaissance and Contemporary Art

Giulio Paolini's contemporary "Eco nel vuoto" (Echo in the void)
 in the same room as Caravaggio's "Narciso" (Narcissus) (1597-99) (also below right).

Palazzo Barberini - that staid old lady in the Centro housing major Renaissance paintings and sculpture - has something new to offer. Following an accord between the Ministers of Cultural Heritage and Defense, the entire South wing of the building, comprising 10 rooms and a small chapel, has been turned over to public use.

From 1934 until this agreement in 2015, the "circolo" - or social center - for the Armed Forces occupied these rooms, perhaps not their highest and best use. We saw some of these odd uses when we highlighted the grounds of the Barberini in a 2014 post. Pursuant to this unusual agreement, the Defense Ministry contributed almost €2 million (about $2.3 million). And they get to use the rooms for 40 days/year - for "reasons of high representation."

That curious story aside, the rooms are magnificent and the opening show - which closes at the end of this month (Oct. 28), is a great one with which to open the South wing. Titled Eco e Narciso ("Echo and Narcissus"), it's a creatively curated matching of Barberini Renaissance works and contemporary pieces. I admit, I'm a sucker for that type of juxtaposition dating from when I saw a show entitled "Antiques in the Modern Home" - or something like that - in the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in the 1960s.

Bernini's sculpture of Pope Urban VIII flanked by Yan Pei-Ming's
paintings of Pope John Paul II (2005) and Mao (1999?)

Paired for example are Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture of.Pope Urban VIII (Cardinal.Francesco Barberini) with paintings of Pope John Paul II and Mao by Yan Pei-Ming; Renaissance paintings of women with Kiki Smith's sculptures; a room richly frescoed by Pietro da Cortona with Luigi Ontani's "Le Ore" ("The Hours").

Ontani's "Le Ore" (1975) in the large salon with
 da Cortona's ceiling fresco, "Allegory of Divine
 Providence"  (and Barberini Power), 1633-36.

The theme is portraiture and self-portraiture, and certainly Ontani about whom we've written before, fits the "Narcissus" theme.

Signature works by Caravaggio and Raphael are also prominent in this show, which features 19 more masterpieces from the collection of the Gallerie Nazionali, in dialogue with 17 contemporary works from MAXXI or loans, with three works realised for the occasion (including 2 for which there are photos here - by Giulio Paolini (top photo) and Yinka Shonibare (last photo).

Ontani again.

The juxtaposition of works was created by a Renaissance art curator and a contemporary art one: Flaminia Gennari Santori, of the Barberini/Corsini galleries, and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, director of the 21st- century MaXXI Arte.  There's another piece to the show at MAXXI, featuring one Renaissance and one contemporary work.

Kiki Smith's "Large Dessert" (2004-05) against the backdrop of female portraits
by Rosalba Carriera and Benedetto Luti (both late 17th to early 18th centuries).

After the current show closes, the entire collection will be re-arranged. For those familiar with the Barberini, this likely is welcome news.  For those of us who visit intermittently, we probably won't notice the difference, except for one change - visitors now will enter on the Bernini stairs and descend on the magnificent Borromini stairs (left), until now closed to the public.  

More pictures of the show below. 

Dianne 

Pierre Subleyras, "Nude from behind," 18th century, paired with
Stefano Arienti's piece below.

Arienti's "SBQR, netnude, gayscape,
orsiitaliani..." 2000.

Yinka Shonibare's "The Invisible Man" (2018) with Marco Benefial's "Portrait of the Quarantotti Family (The missionary's family)" 1735.

Zaha Hadid, Rome "Starchitect" and Designer of MAXXI, dies at 65

The Iraq-born "starchitect" Zaha Hadid died Thursday, March 31.  Her architecture has been widely praised for its ground-breaking, geometrical forms, constructions that owe more than a little to her background in mathematics and study in London with Rem Koolhaas.  She designed only one building in Rome--the state's contemporary art gallery known as MAXXI, which opened in 2010.  In our opinion, it's not her best, but we're glad Rome has this example of her work, described in the New York Times as "voluptuous and muscular, muscular...with ramps that flowed like streams and floors tilted like hills, many walls swerving and swooning."  That's the best description we've read of the building's atrium, though we remain ambivalent about MAXXI, in part because of the way it interacts with the surrounding Flaminio neighborhood.  We expressed that concern in a 2010 post, reprinted below.  An indication of her enormous influence, even with one building in Rome, Hadid shows up in more than a dozen RST posts.  We've provided links to the most significant ones just above the 2010 re-post.  Today, we, too, mourn the loss of a superb and influential architect. 
 
Significant past RST posts on Hadid and MAXXI:
As #30 on RST's Top 40: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2010/01/rst-top-40-30-zaha-hadids-maxxi.html
Hadid as one of Rome's "Starchitects": http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2010/11/romes-starchitects-meier-piano-hadid.html
One evening at MAXXI: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2012/03/evening-at-maxxi.html
A comparison of MAXXI to the City's contemporary art gallery, MACRO: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-building-wars-maxxi-vs-macro-romes.html
A walk-through of a major exhibit at the collection-deprived MAXXI: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2013/09/maxxi-francesco-vezzoli-performance.html
And the October 7, 2010 re-post:
We opened the Monday morning New York Times to discover that Zaha Hadid had won the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Stirling Prize for MAXXI, Rome's new modern art gallery.  The prize is given to the architect of the building that has "made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year."  It made us wonder about the state of British architecture.  Our doubts were confirmed when we checked a website that handicapped (like the horse races) the finalists in the competition, recently listing MAXXI as the odds-on favorite at 4:6, with another exciting and glamorous entry, Clapham Manor Primary School, at 8:1. 

Regular readers of this blog will know that the massive MAXXI, the Titanic of Museums, is not our favorite building; we're already on record suggesting that it doesn't really fit into the Flaminio neighborhood (or any neighborhood, for that matter).  And it may seem unfair that we should take another potshot at it.  But the RIBA announcement offered new inspiration.

And we were inspired enough to include MAXXI on the Flaminio walk of our new book, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  See more on the book at the end of this post. 

In awarding the RIBA prize, the judges described MAXXI as the "quintessence of Zaha's [what's with the first name stuff?] constant attempt to create a landscape as a series of cavernous spaces drawn with a free, roving line."  Cavernous, yes, and the caverns are not all that badly connected inside, if that's what's meant by a "free, roving line."  So maybe the award's for the interior.  [We added the two interior photos below to the original post]

MAXXI lobby, 2010

Cavenous gallery

Outside, things are different.  We discovered the problem on a very hot day in June, escorting New York City friends to MAXXI for their first visit.  After a miserable bus ride (the tram lines were under construction), we found ourselves on the block north of the only entry point, looking forlornly at the entrance--only 50 yards away, but inacessible--and faced with a MAXXI-walk around the block with an unsettled companion who was both irritated and near prostrate with the heat by the time we were able to enter the museum's air-conditioned interior.

Maybe we should have known better where we were going, but the experience made clear to us that MAXXI's mass--its dominance of nearly an entire block--and lack of accessibility were real and related problems. 

And so we returned one evening to document the source of our irritation--and maybe have some fun.  On this occasion, the museum's offer of free admission and music had brought young people out in droves and long lines--so many that we immediately gave up any thought of gaining access to the courtyard, let alone those roving caverns inside.

Instead, we scootered around back and took some photos (above and left) of MAXXI's intimidating,  inaccessible, and ugly back side, dominated by windowless concrete massifs, colorful barriers, and fencing.

Watch for icebergs! 



Bill

The large space outside the gallery entrance works well with "big" art [photo added to original post]

(Dianne points out MAXXI is #30 on our Rome the Second Time  Top 40.) And, as noted above, it is on our Flaminio tour - both its front and its back.  Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler features tours of the "garden" suburb of Garbatella; the 20th-century suburb of EUR, designed by the Fascists; the 21st-century music and art center of Flaminio, along with Mussolini's Foro Italico, also the site of the 1960 summer Olympics; and a stairways walk in Trastevere. This 4-walk book is available in all print and eBook formats The eBook is $1.99 through amazon.com and all other eBook sellers.  See the various formats at smashwords.com. 

Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler now is also available in print, at amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, independent bookstores, and other retailers; retail price $5.99.

RST's Favorite 2015 Rome Restaurants - i.e., Trattorie

The bustling front dining room at Betto e Mary; not sure about the stuffed animal cow and her scarf.  Perhaps someone
will come forth with an explanation.  And the server?  She's the talking menu.

With the usual caveat that we are not foodies, we are taking a break from all that architecture to provide notes on places in Rome where we enjoyed eating this past year.  RST likes to graze, we must admit.  We like small plates; we don't like to be fussed over.  So if you are into high-tone culinary experiences, you probably should not read on (as you also can deduce from the photo above).  But if you like a casual meal, with no or few tourists around, and excellent classic Roman dishes, check out the 3 trattorie below - in a variety of neighborhoods: Monteverde Vecchio, Flaminio, and Tor Pignattara.  We'll take on 4 even more casual places in a subsequent post.

In a covered outside dining area at Betto e Mary - where you
are likely to sit without a reservation (and it's very pleasant).

We've previously mentioned Betto e Mary in the Tor Pignattara neighborhood.  We've enjoyed it partly because it's close to one of our favorite galleries, Wunderkammern.  And the area is known for high-quality wall art. The walk from Wunderkammern to the restaurant will give you a great sampling of that art (check out the StreetArtRoma app - the app is much better than the Web site - for excellent directions).

For those in search of a non-tourist experience, you can't do better than Betto e Mary.  I can't recall how we came to know about it, because you won't find it easily.  It does have many (high) ratings on Yelp and TripAdvisor (the latter spells the name incorrectly) which I checked after we'd been there a couple times.  And I only found out from reading an article in Men's Journal that it's considered a "communist" restaurant (that means apparently only that it's for locals, not businessmen).

Our 26 Euro bill at Betto e Mary was so low,
 we took a photo of it.  And when we paid it,
someone rang a bell and shouted
 "Mancia! mancia!" (tip! tip!)

You probably need a bit of Italian to get by, or be willing to take your chances on, e.g., horsemeat, innards.  The available dishes are described to you by your server; that's it. You can take a look at the (Italian) Facebook page for photos of some of the offerings.  To get to the restaurant, take the #1 tram from the side of Termini or from Porta Maggiore to either the Filarete or Tor Pignattara stop and follow a map or gps from there - it's only a couple blocks.  DON'T follow the Men's Journal advice to take the Metro to Villa Medici and ask! And, although not far from Pigneto, Betto e Mary is not really in Pigneto.  Address: Via dei Savorgnan, 99, 00176 Rome; tel. 0664771096.  I also don't think the open and closing hours are accurate in Men's Journal.

Early in the evening at Lo Sgobbone, before it filled up.

The outside tables are popular at Lo Sgobbone.

Second up, Lo Sgobbone, in our Flaminio neighborhood last year. As I said in my review on TripAdviser, I had to be talked into going in the first place, because the outside awning was so dirty, I didn't trust it. But Bill prevailed, and he was right. Terrific (clean inside) local trattoria, and few tourists. This restaurant isn't too far from MAXXI or from Foro Italico, if you are doing either of those sites. Lo Sgobbone features the usual Italian dishes - we had an excellent spaghetti (billed as tagliolini but it was spaghetti) with fresh artichokes...gotta keep eating them as long as they are in season, and a very good roast veal - large portions. I also ordered the fresh asparagus "a piacere" - prepared as I wished, and I wished with butter and parmesan.  A delicious large plateful was $10 and worth it.  The house white is from Pitigliano in SE Tuscany - an area we love - and perfectly serviceable.  You are given a 1 liter bottle and you pay for "a consumiano" - what you consume.

The awning, Dianne's objection, looks better at night.

We were too full to try the desserts, but they looked terrific, and the Italians around us were not holding back.  For us, this is so much better than Anthony Bourdain's Cacio e Pepe in Prati, or Katie Parla's favorite Cesare al Casaletto (sorry, Katie, usually we think you are spot on and we recommend you every time, but we can't agree on this one).  Bill is loathe to check any other reviews before we go to a restaurant, and he's often proven right - they lead one astray.  I checked Lo Sgobbone only after we went, assuming no one had discovered it, and it shows up with excellent ratings on both Yelp and TripAdviser.  Lo Sgobbone, btw, appears to mean a hard worker, but with a negative connotation (leave it to the Italians!). Via dei Podesti, 10 (between the Lungotevere Flaminio and viale Pinturicchio; near Ponte della Musica), tel: 06 3232994.  And nice photos on the Italian Facebook page.

Third, Tutto Qua!, in the Monteverde Vecchio neighborhood.  This is tinier than the two trattorie above, and more upscale in cuisine and price, but still reasonable.  It's not your classic Italian trattoria, in other words, but it usually has several classics on the menu.  I love the atmosphere, the creative menu, and the presentation.  The wine list is also good, especially for such a small spot.  You can see more photos on Tutto Qua!'s (Italian) Web site and  Facebook.  It's much praised on TripAdvisor (Yelp hasn't discovered it yet).  One drawback: you usually need a reservation.  Our phone number was taken down incorrectly and when the owner couldn't reach us the day before, he cancelled our reservation. So be careful when you reserve a table.  A few outside tables in season, as well (also subject to reservations).  Via Barrilli 66 (via Barrilli turns into via Carini), not far from Il Vascello Theater. tel: 06 580 3649.

Outside, looking in, at Tutto Qua! in Monteverde Vecchio.

We didn't include RST's favorite restaurant in Rome, Mithos, La taverna dell'allegria, because we've written about it many times.  Check out the Facebook site  to see if you can stay away.

And now it's time for some Buffalo wings (when in Buffalo we live 3 blocks from where they were first concocted - Frank and Teresa's Anchor Bar).

Dianne

RST Makes History: 600th post!

It would nice to claim that we've been writing this blog longer than Jon Stewart hosted the Daily Show.  Unfortunately, it's not true.  Stewart's first show was January 1999, and RST didn't premier until February 17, 2009.  We're disappointed, to be sure.  But it's reassuring to know that we've been "on" almost as long as Hannity (no, we don't watch), and longer than Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Parks and Recreation, Castle, Glee, and The Good Wife.  2429 days.  

The occasion for all this self praise is our 600th post, an average of one every 4 days, roughly.  It has helped to have Rome as our subject city, rather than, say, Keokuk or Kankakee (in the words of an old song, no insult intended--we're from Buffalo, after all).  To paraphrase a Rome friend, whenever we wonder what to write about, or think we may have finally exhausted the city's possibilities, we just walk outside.

To celebrate our longevity and persistence, we thought we would offer our readers a few blasts from the past, links to posts they may not have seen when they first appeared, but have witnessed large numbers of page views over the years (in this context, "large" means more than, say, 500 hits--sometimes much more).  You could find these, we know, by using the site Search button, or through a Google search, but you probably didn't, or won't.  Besides, we've done some winnowing.

Here are 11 we think you'll enjoy.  And thanks for your support!  Now if Hannity would only get fired.

Making Limoncello

Rome's Modern Churches Are Worth the Trek

The Politics of an Anthem: Bella Ciao

Walking the (Aurelian) Wall: Wall Walk I of our series

Libya and Italian Colonialism

Garibaldi in Rome

Ethiopian Abebe Bikila, winning the 1960 marathon,
running barefoot

The 1960 Rome Olympics

The Building Wars: MAXXI vs MACRO

World War II at Home: Via Tasso

Gabbo: The Death and Life of Gabriele Sandri






Born Again in Piazza Fiume

la Rinascente, Piazze Fiume

eBook Launch (and now in print too!): MODERN ROME: 4 GREAT WALKS FOR THE CURIOUS TRAVELER

Bill and Dianne are pleased to announce the publication of their eBook, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler (Curious Traveler Press).  It is available for download on Kindle (and for other devices using the Kindle app) at amazon.com (click on the cover at right). $1.99
UPDATE: Now available in print from all major booksellers, including amazon.com

We offer four new, alternative Rome walks, all outside the city’s tourist core, all easily accessible by Metro or tram, and all in neighborhoods where Romans live and work.  As the readers of our blog have put it, "Rome with the Romans." 



Entrance to Garbatella, early 1920s

“Garbatella—Garden City Suburb” is a guided tour through one of the world’s most engaging and mysterious planned communities, a 1920s creation featuring curving streets, enchanting stairways, interior courtyards, and some of the most unusual public housing ever built.

Fascist-era spectacle at the Square Coliseum

“EUR: Mid-Century Spectacle” features a dramatic locale, now a center of Rome’s business community, but planned and constructed in monumental style to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1922 Fascist March on Rome.

Zaha Hadid's MAXXI

On the opposite end of the city, a walk through Flaminio introduces Rome’s sensational 21st-century, Starchitect-designed cultural centers, and across the Tiber, the suggestive site of the 1960 Olympic Games, the Foro Italico, a virtual “Mussolini theme park” built by the Duce in the 1930s.

A medieval-style tower, in the heart of Villa Sciarra

A fourth, stairways walk begins in Trastevere’s back yard, winding up, down, and around Rome’s 8th hill, the Gianicolo, traversing a 17^th-century villa, a compelling 1941 monument to the Italian unification movement, and one of the smallest, and most charming temples in all of Italy.

Modern Rome is available now for Kindle at the Kindle Store at Amazon.  It will soon be available in several other formats, including iBooks (through iTunes), Nook (through Barnes and Noble), and through Smashwords.  You can also download the book onto an iPad or iPhone through Amazon’s Kindle Store, using a Kindle app on your device.  Modern Rome features more than 100 hyperlinks, 63 photos, and 4 detailed maps.   $1.99 in all formats. 

MAXXI: the Francesco Vezzoli Performance

We enjoyed Elisabetta Provoledo's July 22 article in the New York Times, describing the efforts of MAXXI, Rome's splashy, new, Zaha Hadid-designed museum of contemporary art, to attract Roman audiences while building an international reputation. 








It hasn't been easy, especially when state money is tight, the museum's collections are thin, and the

On her cell phone

young staff would prefer to play with their cell phones rather than to assist curious or lost patrons or hand out the earphones like they were supposed to do for a video exhibit (photo at right). 

One technique that MAXXI is trying is to mount hip exhibits that plug into Italy's fashion industry.  Last year, for example, the museum arranged with Zegna, an apparel company, to commission an exhibit by artists Lucy and Jorge Orta that conveniently used Zegna fabrics. 

And more recently, MAXXI mounted a visually stunning exhibit by Francesco Vezzoli, who was able to deploy his star power to bring in $525,000 at a fundraising dinner, in a city where fundraising on that level is virtually unknown. 

Vezzoli: Postmodern to a fault

Vezzoli (b. 1971, lives in Milan) has exhibited at the New Museum in New York City and the Tate Modern in London.  He's a painter and performance artist, and his sumptuous MAXXI presentation utilizes both talents.  Vezzoli plays with Hollywood and film, exploring contemporary ideas and experiences of fame and celebrity.

On the day before the Vezzoli exhibit opened, we were the beneficiaries of those cellphone-devoted museum attendants, whom we found huddled together for a chat, while only a few feet away we gingerly slipped past a velvet rope and found ourselves alone--well, for a while there was this Asian guy who had also sneaked in--with Vezzoli's as yet unseen exhibit. 

Very special.
Thanks, MAXXI, for the private showing.
Dianne and Bill




Not sure what he had in mind here, but this is how you raise money



Bizarre juxtaposition of ancient and modern...that's Lauren Bacall