Luigi Moretti's Il Girasole: a House Divided

 

Il Girasole. From this angle especially, easy to pass up, to walk by, as if were just another building.

We're walkers, but we don't recommend walking viale Bruno Buozzi (in the Parioli quartiere), unless there's a reason to do so. (Though it's named for an influential union leader murdered by the Nazis towards the end of World War II.) It's a long and curvy street, more or less connecting viale Parioli with via Flaminia, with few attractions and minimal commerce. Not all that interesting. 

But there is at least one reason to walk that walk: Luigi Moretti's "Il Girasole" (The Sunflower) house. 

Il Girasole, as it looked in 2012. That split in the middle is important.

Its architect is famous, and not only in Italy and Rome, his home town. Born in 1907, Moretti studied architecture at the Royal School of Architecture in Rome, then worked for several years with archeologist and art historian Corrado Ricci on aspects of Trajan's Market. In the 1930s he became one of Italian Fascism's favored architects, designing the fascist youth organization building in Trastevere (1933) and several buildings in the Foro Mussolini, including Mussolini's gymnasium (1936) and the Academy of Fencing (1936).

In the United States, he designed the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C., notorious for the 1972 burglary of Democratic National Committee Headquarters that precipitated the "Watergate scandal," and produced the political term "Watergate" and all the other "-gates" (scandals) that followed.

"Il Girasole" is a postwar work, designed in 1949 and built in 1950. It's considered an early example of postmodern architecture, a building architect and theorist Robert Venturi described as ambiguous, existing in a new space between tradition and innovation.

This photo, from an earlier period, shows off the structure's 
horizontal lines as well as its vertical division. 

This shot of the interior emphasizes Moretti's origins in modernism, though the
brickwork/window, jutting out (and interrupting) at left, has a post-modern valence. 

Swiss architectural theorist Stanislaus von Moss has argued that Venturi's Vanna House (1962-1964) "recalls the duality of the facade of Luigi Moretti's apartment house on the Via Parioli [sic: viale Bruno Buozzi] in Rome." We agree. And both the Vanna House and Il Girasole disrupt the flow of modernism. Hence modernism, with a post-modern touch.

Moretti also designed villas for wealthy patrons, including La Villa Saracena (1954), in the village of Santa Marinella, about an hour by car from the center of Rome. In 1958, he was one of several distinguished architects who designed Rome's Olympic Village in preparation for the 1960 games. 

The trees are larger in this 2017 photo (not good for the look of the building), and there's more foliage on the roof. 

Bill 

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 

Mensole

What one sees--in Rome or anywhere else--depends on where one looks. Over the years, we've probably done more down-looking than most travelers. RST regulars may remember the post on manhole covers, or the one on curbs, or the offering on Rome's undulating and ugly asphalt sidewalks, or the one on love poems chalked onto those sidewalks.

But we also look ahead and up; that's where much of the architecture is, and we're fans of buildings of all kinds (even the much-maligned and misunderstood brutalism of the 1970s).  We've written about door handles, spiky things that prevent people from sitting down, the scallop shell motif that appears on so many 19th-century buildings, broken pediments, and the open loggia that's ubiquitous in Rome.

What we haven't written about--hadn't really "seen"--are the "mensole" that are a prominent feature of many buildings.  "Mensole" is the Italian term, and the English word, as we just learned from a reader, is "corbels," with an emphasis on the first syllable. We're talking about the mensole that support--or appear to support--Rome's balconies, roofs, and windows.

Below, a few, of thousands; the last two photos are of Noto, a Sicilian town known for its mensole:

Near the intersection of via Nomentana and viale Regina Margherita

Romanesque Basic 

Late-19th century elegance

Via Paisiello, in Salario.  Not sure what's supporting what here.  

The once-Poligrafico dello Stato (State Printing Office), Piazza Verdi

Coppede'. Focus on gate, unfortunately.

Nice lion. Otherwise leaning into modernism. 

And the Sicilian town of Noto:

Amazing.

Bill

Door Handles, and Knockers

Near the Anglo-American Book Shop

To say Rome is a visual delight would be obvious, but not all of its delights are, well, obvious.  For years we've been going in and out of, or walking by, Rome's doors.  And at some point we couldn't help noticing the accoutrements that allow access: the door handles and door knockers. Many are old, perhaps very old, some are new, but distinctive.  Some--especially those from the 1950s and early 1960s--announce their age more specifically than most.  Here are some we've found during our trips to Rome.  The earliest photos are from 2013.

Inside what was the home of Ignatius of Loyola, Piazza del Gesu

Straight out of 1960. San Paolo.

Palazzo Barberini

Unusual wood handle.  Belongs to a watch
band shop at via della Vite, 14.

Recent, but cool anyway.

Near via della Gatta

Utensils as Handles.  Possibly Monti.

An interior door, at Largo Ippolito Nievo, 1, Trastevere

An odd knocker with an Egyptian and/or African look, near the Spanish Steps

Casal Bertone.  Nice because one handle has been used, the other not.  Same with the doors. 

 

Very unusual hands--knockers or handles not clear.
They're on a building by Rapisardi (now housing Bulgari) on the Lungotevere

Location unknown.  Sweet.  Angel holds on tight.  

Trastevere, somewhere on the south side of viale Trastevere

Flaminio.  Recent.  The door on the right is the only one that's used.  

Bill 

Finding Rome, in Washington, D.C.: The Pension Building

Rome is in our thoughts even when we're not in the city.  And so RST was surprised, and pleased, to come across a reference to the architecture of the Eternal City while in Washington, D.C. over the holidays.

The surprise took the form of what is now the National Building Museum (created by Congress in 1980).  It once housed the U.S. Pension Bureau, established after the Civil War to dispense pensions to the veterans (and their widows) of Union soldiers who had fought in that conflict.

The entrance is on the other side, off F Street

It's monumental in scope.  With grounds at each end, it occupies much of a city block (between F and G and 4th and 5th NW).  When completed in 1887, it was the largest brick building in the world--and controversial, too, because brick was an unlikely material for a major government building in Washington.

The designer was Army Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs.  Fortunately for RST, Meigs was familiar with Rome buildings and classical architecture.

Palazzo Farnese

The three-level classical facade, and the variations within it, mimic Rome's Palazzo Farnese (1550s), as does the cornice, said by some to be a "direct copy"of Michelangelo's epic cornice for the Farnese (our memory is that the Farnese cornice has a much larger overhang). And the cornice adapts the Farnese acanthus leaves/fleur-de-lis to a military motif, with cannons and bursting bombs.

Exterior frieze, Pension Building

The exterior frieze (above) was, perhaps, most directly inspired by the Greek Parthenon, but is also reminiscent of the designs on Rome's Trajan's column--depicting another epic military campaign, that one in the far flung province of Dacia (now Romania).

The Italian Renaissance Revival theme is also carried out inside, in one of the most impressive rooms ever created.  The Corinthian columns that dominate the interior, also constructed in brick, are 8 feet in diameter, 25 feet in circumference and, at 75 feet in height, are still some of the world's tallest.

The brick columns, under construction, early 1880s

The Great Hall, still used by Presidents for inaugural balls, is roughly the size of a football field: 316 feet long, 116 feet wide, 159 feet high.  Here, Meigs' inspirations were two, and both Roman: the Baths of Diocletian (298-306) and the Renaissance-era Palazzo della Cancelleria, just off Campo de' Fiori.  Although they have (apparently) nothing to do with Rome, the building's stone stairways are interesting; they were designed with low risers to accommodate injured and handicapped war veterans.

There's a charge (about $10) to get into the Building Museum, the carpeted Great Hall and some other locations in the building can be appreciated for free.

Bill

F Street side, frieze above the first floor 

The arcades of the Pension Building resemble those
in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, above.