New Visions of the Evangelists at the Hungarian Academy in Rome - til May 13

The 4 apostles, a subject that does not always hold fascination for us, open the current exhibit at the Hungarian Academy in Rome (the exhibit is scheduled to close May 13).  A glance at the poster seems to indicate a somewhat traditional portrait of one of the saints - in this case, Saint Matthew. We wandered into the exhibit nonetheless (being underwhelmed by the Wunderkammern group show across the street), informed by prior excellent shows at that Academy on via Giulia in Borromini's Palazzo Falconieri.

And our wandering was rewarded. The portrait of St. Matthew, by artist Erik Mátrai, on closer look was composed of money, acknowledging Matthew's role as a tax collector ("publican") - photo at right. The other 4 apostles similarly were composed of materials reflecting their status. Below is St. Mark, whose name is tied to the blessing of the crops, made out of seeds of grain.

Sts. Luke and John are at the end of the post.

The exhibit featured another spectacle of a work, very different from the 4 apostles, again by Mátrai, this one using light and reflection (from a lamp source and from a curtained window in the Palazzo), as well as from one's own shadow.

Here one can see more clearly the use of mirrors and shadows:

Works by 16 other artists play on the theme of the evangelists. Among those, we particularly liked Lajos Csontó's 12 disciples, wo are in essence real, ordinary, living people. His black and white photographs, accompanied by brief texts, have some of the feel of Bill Viola's videos and stills.

Below is Ilona Lovas's part installation/part painting/part sculpture on the washing of the feet:

Rome is home to great contemporary religious art. The "furnishings" at Piero Sartogo's Santo Volto church, about which we've written, are among them.  

And so too is this exhibit, "Vangelo 21" (21st Gospel), at the Hungarian Academy in Rome, via Giulia 1 (directly across from Wunderkammern Gallery), posted hours Monday through Friday 9:30-19:30.

Dianne

Here's St. Luke, reportedly a painter and a patron of the arts. Mátrai composed this painting - of the artist/saint painting an icon - of pieces of paintings he did not complete.

  Close-up of St. Luke

And below, St. John, a writer and patron saint of writers. Mátrai uses the letters A, B, and C, and overlaps them to create the texture of the painting.

St John, close-up

The First Mormon Temple in Italy - in Rome (sort of)

The temple looks large and impressive in this view, but it's actually quite small. The
curved planes seen here may be a citation to Meier's Jubilee Church, below,
or to Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. 

Our search for contemporary churches led us a few months ago to the first Mormon temple in Italy – dedicated on March 10 this year. It’s the 162^nd Mormon temple in the world.

It was indeed a search to find the temple, which is as far out of the center of Rome as any church we’ve found.  Touted as a building whose sponsors “spared no expense,” the temple is, frankly, underwhelming.  Of course, it must compete not only with the spectacular Catholic churches of the Renaissance, such as St. Peter’s and San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (both cited as inspirations for the temple) to name just two, but also 21^st-century churches we admire that include Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church and Piero Sartogo’s Santo Volto.

Scale model of interior of temple

For those who think Meier’s Jubilee Church is way out of town, you need to go twice as far to get to the Mormon Temple. It’s practically on top of the GRA (Rome’s outer ‘ring road’) and seems to fit in with, perhaps even be diminished by, the large, undistinguished shopping mall and apartment buildings nearby.

Meier's Jubilee Church

Piero Sartogo's Santo Volto

We found the temple decidedly uninspiring. The Salt Lake City-based Mormon architect might have done better to collaborate with an Italian starchitect to end up with something that approaches the awe-producing design of Paolo Portoghesi’s Mosque, or Meier's and Sartogo’s churches.

Mosque

Admittedly, we did not go inside the temple because once it is dedicated, non-Mormons are not permitted inside. Mormons are allowed inside only for specific purposes, which do not include basic church services.  The inside – from the scale model we were shown by a young American proselytizer at the Visitor Center, looks more homey than church-y.  Church services are held in a chapel, which again is decidedly – and it appears purposefully – plain.  There’s none of what Alain de Botton cites as the religious architecture that makes one almost believe there is a God.

Chapel

Adam and Eve

The Visitor Center paintings include an Adam and Eve who look like Barbie and Ken, the Mormons’ patron saint, Moroni, who looks like Charlton Heston, and others who may be designed to make us feel that we, too, can be figures in a Passion Play. It also has a faux Italian farmhouse and faux farm landscape.  A villetta was torn down to make way for the temple complex – so perhaps this is an homage to that villetta.  Regardless, it’s kitchy at best.

Moroni

Faux villetta inside Visitor Center

The Mormons have only recently been added to the list of religions that have an elevated status in Italy, allowing them some tax and other benefits. They cite the 1929 Concordat between Mussolini’s Fascist government and the Roman Catholic Church for inspiration, and they ended up hiring a lobbyist to get what they wanted, beginning that particular quest in 2006. The history of discrimination against the Mormons is an interesting one to be sure. Pope Francis met the LDS (see PS below) President in March, a first-ever meeting of those figures.

Faux campagna romana inside faux villetta

We’d like to think we’re eclectic in our lay appreciation of religious architecture, but, frankly, we’d skip this complex in favor of almost any other one in Rome. In fact, what attracted Bill on our scooter ride home was his discovery of a brutalist water tank that is in one of the books in our library on 200 great Rome architectural works of the 20^th century.  At least he got something out of our trek.

Dianne

Bill's brutalist water tower

PS We read recently that the Mormons no longer want to use that name and ask that everyone use the Church of Latter-Day Saints, or LDS for short.  Because they used Mormon when building and consecrating this temple, we stuck with it for this post.

Sartogo's Santo Volto Church - a Top Ten Visit

Put the 2006 church of Santo Volto di Gesù ("the Holy Face of Jesus") on your top 10 list for modern Rome architecture.  Less heralded than US architect Richard Meier's 2003 Dives in Miseracordia (known as the "Jubilee Church"), Santo Volto is equal to Meier's work and in some ways surpasses it. It's also closer to the center of Rome and easier to get to.

It's hard to overstate the dramatic impact of Santo Volto in this somewhat run-down neighborhood of Magliana.  Rome architect Piero Sartogo inserted the church into the fabric of the community on a small plot of land, totally unlike Meier's church, which has been heavily criticized for not being "of the neighborhood."  Perhaps for these reasons, too, the church is so heavily packed for Sunday mass that one must get there early to get a seat.  Sartogo's collaborator and wife, Nathalie Grenon, confirms the people in the community are proud of the church.

The 'half dome' looming among the nearby apartment buildings.

Sartogo used the concept of negative volume to present in reality a half-dome, an echo of the Pantheon, but modernized.  Quoting Grenon in a 2013 interview with us:
     The site of the church is critical. It's the idea of a city; it's urban. The language of the architecture here is the mass and the void. The void becomes a dynamic element, the void is inserted by creating a mass; and so there's that tension, as there is tension between the urban environment and the sacred.

But Grenon won't call the building "post modern."  In her words:

Entrance, with rectangular shapes contrasting with the round 'cupola.'
We would say shades of Fascism's rationalist period, but Grenon wouldn't buy it.
She would say only that the materials are Roman.

      The Santo Volto cupola is a reference to the Pantheon, and its idea of the sacred. In the Pantheon the sphere is inside, while in our church, the two halves of the dome are separate: one represents the sacred and the other the profane. All of Rome is constructed with shapes that come from somewhere else.

Let's just say the effect is awe-inspiring.  As social critic Alain de Botton says of some churches, they're designed to make you feel the power of God--and this one does, perhaps even for nonbelievers.

Mimmo Palladino's 4th Station of the Cross (Jesus meets his
afflicted mother).

Santo Volto is a showcase for contemporary Italian artists. Sartogo and Grenon commissioned several of them to provide the liturgical furnishings.  There was no budget for this purpose, and they had to work almost for free.  Some were famous; some were young and not.  Noted artist Mimmo Palladino's stations of the cross are impressive and of this century.  Young artist Pietro Ruffo's  "face of Jesus" painting is hauntingly gorgeous.

Pietro Ruffo's face of Jesus, above the confessionals.

And then there's the crucifix.  It was originally designed by noted Italian artist Jannis Kounnelis, but the Diocese rejected his design.  Sartogo and Grenon had to come up with something quickly, before the Pope's visit.  She sketched out the crucifix, which was supposed to be temporary but has become iconic.  It's now for sale at the Vatican.

Grenon holding a replica of the crucifix she
designed.

Grenon's interview contains more fascinating comments.  It's here in TheAmerican/inItaly online magazine.

The church is open as most churches are; with a break in the middle of the day.  To be safe, we suggest going before noon or from 4-7 pm.  Impressive as it is outside, you will want to see the inside too.  Via della Magliana 166.  The church is about 3/4 mile (1.3 km) from Piazza Meucci at the southern end of the Marconi district.

As some of our loyal readers know, we have made the modern churches of Rome a project.  For posts on churches, put 'modern church' in the search engine.

Additional photos below of, first, Meier's Jubilee Church and then several more of Santo Volto.

Dianne

Richard Meier's Jubilee Church.  The exception that proves the rule:  this day
we saw people enjoying the somewhat isolated church piazza.

Entrance doors to Santo Volto - echoing Renaissance church bronze doors.

Outside the half-cupola, in the open volume.

Play and contemplative space in back, nestled in the community.

From inside the church - through the back 'wall' and crucifix-
 one can see the neighborhood apartments.

Nathalie Grenon with the crucifix she designed--
now on sale at the Vatican.

Schematic of church and list of artists.

Three centuries in one place: 6th Century BC Servian Wall, 1908 Palazzo, 2014 Hotel

Sixth Century Servian Wall in front of 1908 Palazzo Montemartini [more photos of the wall at the end of this post]

I thought I'd start with these two pictures - above, a 1908 palazzo in 18th-century style with the 6th- century BC Servian Wall in its courtyard, and below, the 2014 entry lobby of the Hotel Montemartini IN this palazzo.  Ah, Rome.  What a fabulous conflation of eras.

Registration Desk, Hotel Montemartini

We wanted to see this palazzo because the conversion to a 21st- century hotel was by the architectural firm of King Roselli, praised by one of our favorite contemporary Rome architects, Nathalie Grenon of Sartogo Architetti Associati. King Roselli also are the architects for the Radisson Blu es Hotel, which sports one of Rome's great rooftop bars. The Radisson Blu es Hotel is also near Stazione Termini, but about a mile away, on the other side of the train station.

It took us a while to find Hotel Montemartini, because it's not an obvious hotel building and the address doesn't make its location apparent.  Once we found it, and the Servian Wall, we were duly impressed.

Lobby view into "library"; note the use of see-through
stone block (i.e. Servian Wall) display

The hotel design has been up for awards and received good press when it opened a little over a year ago, January 2014.  King Roselli has commentary on its Web site about the conversion, which clearly wasn't easy.  It appears (see below - like many things in Rome, nothing is totally clear) the building was first designed as headquarters of the Rome transportation system, ATAC.

As the architects say:  "The structure and the original internal arrangement were not immediately suitable to the programme of a hotel.  This meant the design of the 87 guests rooms in seven or eight 'types' which were then adapted to the existing building one by one."

Looking through the stone blocks

Another Web site notes:  "The structure, an early example of a reinforced concrete, mixed with load bearing walls, with a large number of level changes, has given rise to a necessarily complex distribution of the hotel."

King Roselli state they tried to reflect ancient history with their use of stone (the Servian Wall) and water - the ruins of the Baths of Diocletion are, yes, a stone's throw, from the hotel (if not under it).




We think this all works, but then we haven't paid to stay in this 5-star hotel.  There are many meetings here, including those of an ex-pat group that seems particularly fond of the bar, and we would say, appropriate so (photo below).



A view out the entrance -a feel for the 18th century
style in a 1908 building (on ancient ruins)

Another mystery to me was the name of the palazzo.  "Montemartini" is known to Romans as the site of the ancient sculpture collection of the city housed in a former 1920s power plant - hence the name of the museum - Centrale Montemartini.  But that's way on the other side of the city in Ostiense.  Hmmm.  Now (not when we started this exploration) we know that the palazzo originally was a headquarters for ATAC.  And Centrale Montemartini was named for the then head of ATAC, Giovanni Montemartini.

restaurant, featuring the 18th century-style columns
and water streams at left (see next photo below)

Giovanni Montemartini, 1887

Aha!  As stated in one of the Web sites:  "The Palazzo was established by Giovanni Montemartini, first councillor of public transport of the municipality of Rome and, until December 2008, it was the headquarters of the transportation company of Rome, today ATAC."  Should we trust that info?  The same Web site says the building dates from the 1800s, which seems clearly to be wrong.  Was it first Montemartini's residence?  Some evidence suggests that; other evidence that it was built as an administration building.  As the hotel's own Web site says, it was an 18th-century design, in any event.

Seeing the Servian Wall here and having seen it in other places - the McDonald's under Stazione Termini among other sites - maybe our next project is  "walking the Servian Wall" - or at least connecting the dots of the few pieces left - one of which is also next to the hotel.

described as "table fountain," water reflecting
the proximity of the Roman Diocletian baths

Dianne

The bar - one can see its appeal

Another part of the Servian Wall, this one under wraps, at the
entrance area to the hotel.

Another view of the Servian Wall, this one from outside the
hotel grounds, complete with street vendors, which are plentiful
around Termini, this one appropriately selling luggage in front
of the hotel.

For More About Italy, check out The American/in Italia

RST recently wrote an interview piece for an online magazine about Italy:  The American/in Italia.

The interview was with Rome architect Nathalie Grenon, who works and designs with her husband, Piero Sartogo, through their Rome architectural studio -  Sartogo Architetti Associati.  You can read The American/in Italia and the interview - titled "Sacred and Profane" - through this link: http://www.theamericanmag.com/article.php?article=4017&p=full

Grenon with the cross she designed
-  the only contemporary cross
sold in the Vatican Bookstore.

We must admit to be homeys a bit here.  Several of our friends write for The American/in Italia.  So of course we also recommend U.S. lawyer and Rome resident Don Carroll's monthly column on the law in Italy (compared, often, to the U.S.), "Closing Argument,"  and international economist (and also Rome resident) Vittorio Jucker's column on economic issues.  Here's one of Don's, with the intriguing title, The Lamborghini, II.  And one of Vittorio's on the Costs of War.

And, we add, all in English.

Happy Reading - or, as the Italians would say, "buon leggere!"

Dianne

Bruno Zevi: Rome's Architectural Theorist

Bruno Zevi is widely regarded as one of great architectural theorists of the 20th century.  Writing in The Guardian on the occasion of Zevi's death in 2000, Thomas Muirhead opined that Zevi's two early books on architectural theory, Vero l'architettura organica/Towards Organic Architecture (1935) and
Sapere Vedere la Citta/How to Understand the City (1948) "alone place Zevi among the greatest historians and theoreticians."

Bruno Zevi

Born to an elite Jewish family in Rome in 1918, Zevi studied architecture at the University of Rome,  served in the Italian military, and engaged in clandestine anti-Fascist activities.  Forced to leave the country in 1939 by the new racial laws, he made his way to England and then the United States, earning a graduate degree at Harvard's School of Design, then led by Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus.  He returned to Italy in 1944, quickly emerging as a prominent figure in Italy's architectural circles while teaching architecture at the University of Venice, and later, after 1963, at the University of Rome. 

Zevi's major contribution to architectural theory was what he called "organic architecture," a term apparently coined by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1908. "Organic architecture" has more definitions than the Eskimos have words for snow (yes, we know, a myth), but it's safe to say that for Zevi it meant a democratic, humanistic architecture centered around people and linked to nature and its surroundings.  Zevi was deeply opposed to both the cold, ahuman modernism of Gropius and the abstract principles of order, proportion and symmetry that governed classical forms.  "When Gropius, Mies [van der Rohe] and [Alvar] Aalto produced [symmetrical buildings]," he wrote, "it was an act of surrender.  Lacking a modern code, they weakened and regressed to the familiar womb of classicism."  Identifying classical symmetry with power and dominance--and with the Mussolini Fascism that he detested--Zevi advocated an organic architecture grounded in asymmetry, rupture, dissonance and fragmentation.

That's clear enough (or it isn't), but it can be difficult to visualize Zevi's philosophy.  He didn't design much of anything, in Rome or elsewhere.  So how can the Rome tourist, or for that matter anyone, get a visual handle on Zevi's ideas? 

EUR/architecture of symmetry and power

We can begin with what he detested: the pompous, symmetrical, monumental buildings of Marcello Piacentini, the chief architect of EUR.  No rupture, no dissonance, no fragmention.  This architecture was all about power--power over Italy's colonies, Fascism's power over its subjects.  For similar (tho distinct) reasons--again, the issue of power was in play for him--he was critical of Bernini's St. Peter's Square. 


Studio Passarelli

And then there are the Rome buildings, and their Rome architects, that Zevi admired.  One such building, completed in 1964, just as Zevi was taking up his position at the University of Rome, was the Studio Passarelli, on via Campania.  Designed by Lucio Passarelli, it's a curious combination of modernist box and building-blocks top, just the sort of rupture that Zevi encouraged and applauded. 

Studio Passarelli, upper floors

Zevi was particularly fond of another building, this one in the suburban Piazza Bologna neighborhood, and of its architect, Piero Sartogo.  The two men met for the first time in 1971 when the building, the headquarters of the Rome Medical Association, was under construction, "a few yards" from where Zevi lived.  Zevi demanded that Sartogo appear at the site, immediately, and when he did, "I found the great critic stopping passersby, grabbing them by the arm, pointing up to the building, and asking them, 'Isn't it beautiful?'" recalled Sartogo.  A tour of the building followed and, shortly thereafter,

Piero Sartogo's Medical Office Building

a Zevi column in L'Espresso in which the building was compared to a "tree with exposed roots" and its architect praised for an unconventional structure that stood against cold rationalism and confused postmodernism.







In  1973, Zevi described the Medical Office Building in the Chronache di Architettura, emphasizing how the structure's distinctive exterior elements reflected the various activities to be accomplished inside.  "The principle of contamination [of these activities] "is organically achieved.  This is not an anonymous container with a regular structural framework into which rooms fit like drawers in a

Medical Office Building

chest.  The pilasters are coupled, and when required, they slide into a horizontal position expanding into beam-walls to envelope the auditorium, the cantilevered seminar rooms, the double-height foyers, and the periodical library.  The result is an organism structurally engaged in modulating the interlocking continuity of the spaces and displaying their spatial volumes both inside and outside." 

Zevi explained, too, that the building had been controversial, not the least for those who were to occupy it.  In 1966, Italian physicians gasped at the design, comparing it to London's elegant Royal College of Physicians.  "Why," they asked, "can't we have a minimum of charm, elegance and refinement like our British colleagues?"  Sartogo and his collaborators had their answer:  "For the simple reason [as Zevi reports] that your Medical Association is not an ancient institution like the Royal College.  It neither possesses a previous art gallery or a series of extremely rare medical treatises.  We lack a cultural tradition in the professions, and those seemingly odd but prestigious rituals that establish status do not exist.  Furthermore, you have chosen a suburban location for your headquarters in a neighborhood full of apartment buildings: Do you want to erect a monument or a bogus Guild Hall?"  The Medical Office Building, Zevi concluded, was "one of the most interesting and provocative buildings in the city of Rome."

We discovered the building while plotting one of two Piazza Bologna itineraries for Rome the Second Time.  The Medical Office Building that Bruno Zevi found so distinctive and important appears in Itinerary 8, "In the Parks, on the Streets, and in the Homes of the Famous, If Not Rich."  It is on via
Giovanni Battista de Rossi.  When we met architect Piero Sartogo in 2008, he told us the structure had been placed on the historic structures registry and was in line for a facelift. 

On our first sighting of the building,  we recognized its distinctiveness but were not so fond of the exposed concrete, which we identified with a brutalist aesthetic that we disliked.  Today, we bow to modern Rome's outstanding architectural theorist, Bruno Zevi.

Bill