Touring RAI Headquarters. Or, at least we saw the horse.

The semi-artsy photo above was taken from the parkway between the two halves of viale Mazzini (at #14), across from the headquarters of RAI, Italy's largest television station, in the della Vittoria area of Rome (adjacent to Prati).  We had made hard-to-get reservations for a tour of the building through Open House Roma, the two-day, May event that promises access to buildings that are normally off limits to those without badges and the like.  We imagined observing busy newsrooms, reporters at their desks, local celebrities preparing for the news hour--or something like that. The tour is beginning to form.

Sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes you don't.

Being part of the tour did get us inside the gate and the fence, and in close proximity to the "Cavallo Morente" (the dying horse). The horse is visible from the sidewalk and can be photographed through the fence, but we appreciated the closer view of what has become the symbol of the company--an odd one, we think, given that the horse is dying.

With our tour group in front of the building.

It's a well known sculpture, designed by Francesco Messina (1900-1995), who was an active sculptor during the Fascist era and managed to survive that experience without undue damage to his reputation.

In 1941--two years before the fall of Fascism--Messina was at work on four horses, of about the same size as the Cavallo Morente, that were to be installed atop the Palazzo dei Congressi, in EUR.  The war intervened, and the horses were never completed and, of course, never installed.

Thirty years later a wealthy man in the town of Formello (a town we've enjoyed hiking from not far out of Rome) acquired the molds for the 4 horses, had them cast in bronze and placed in Villa Leoni, where they are not--to my knowledge--visible to the public.  Indeed, the photo I found of the horses on the internet was not copyable by ordinary means.  I took the photo below with a camera, from a  computer screen.  (By the way, we didn't learn any of the above from the tour.)

These could be seen at Villa Leoni in Formello--if you knew the owner. 

The RAI horse motif also appears in a "Flying Horse" designed by Mario Ceroli, which we saw on our visit to the suburb of Saxa Rubra, where RAI has more operations.

A couple of shots of the building's exterior:

Angled steel columns, typical of the period.

An elegant corner staircase (we assume). Italian staircases are invariably well done.

Our group was allowed to proceed through the glass doors and into an interior courtyard decorated with a garden and fountain in, as I recall, vaguely Asian style.  I say "I recall" because we were not allowed to photograph the courtyard.  With two exceptions.  We were permitted to photograph a model of the building in a plastic case, which at least offered some sense of the structure's configuration, which is in the shape of an "R" for RAI (or even "R+A+I," depending on how you look at it):

And we were allowed to photograph a composite photograph of the building under construction.

It goes without saying that we never got beyond the courtyard.  No newsrooms.  No celebs.  No upstairs.  As restricted as we were, there were prohibitions: no caschi (motorcycle helmets), no bagagli (baggage, suitcases).

RAI is a state-owned enterprise, part of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.  It was founded in 1924, and until 1954 was known as Radio Audizione Italiane, whose initials form RAI.  Since 2000 it has been known simply as RAI (pronounced like "rye").  Designed by Francesco Berarducci (we have written about his buildings before, including a nifty apartment house in the Brutalist mode) and Alessandro Fioroni and completed in 1965, it was the first building in Rome constructed entirely of steel.  It's considered a fine example of 1960s architecture, or so we were told.  We didn't see enough to be sure.  At least we saw the horse.

Bill

"Tour" over

Mario Ceroli: Rome Sculptor

He's hardly a household name.  And doubtless less well known than some of the other unknowns we've featured on the Rome the Second Time blog.  But he has had, and continues to have, an impact, here and there, on Rome and its environs.  He's Mario Ceroli.

Readers of the RST Facebook page may recall that Ceroli is the designer of a very large late- modernist sculpture, a polyhedron in pine, painted red, that now resides in Flaminio, just steps away from Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazetto dello Sport. That piece--a favorite of Bill's, but not Dianne's--was designed for the 1990 World Cup (its title is "Goal"), and its original location was, appropriately, close to the stadium in which important games were played.  It was positioned in Foro Italico.

Incredibly, the sculpture may also have been located, at one time, next to Nervi's other Rome masterwork, the Palazzo dello Sport, in EUR.

Or perhaps this is a fanciful invention--that is, not a real photo.  

Ceroli is perhaps better known for another piece in wood: the Cavallo Alato (winged horse, 1987), at the Centro Direzionale Rai (RAI the television station) at the entrance to via Carlo Emery in Saxa Rubra, a town not far to the north of Rome.  The horse is covered with gold.  We haven't seen it in person.

Ceroli also specialized in church furnishings.  He designed furnishings for the church of Porto Rotondo, Sardinia (1971), and for Santa Maria del Redentore, in lovely (a touch of irony here) Tor Bella Monaca, on Rome's outskirts.   We have been to this church, which is striking on the outside and, we know now, decorated on the inside by Ceroli.  More work in wood. More photos of the interior of this church at the end of this post.

Born in Castel Frentano (in the Abruzzi) in 1938, Ceroli soon found himself in Rome's grasp.  Among his first artistic influences was the Accademia di Belli Arti di Roma.  In the 1960s he was much taken with the new vogue of pop art, and especially with the work - often in wood -  of Louise Nevelson (and see here for more on Nevelson's work) and Joe Tilson.  In later decades, his creative energies were frequently expressed in a series of multiple wood cut-outs, of the sort pictured immediately below.

A typical Ceroli cut-out sequence.  A comment on identity? homogeneity? Postmodern repetition?

A church pew, of inlaid wood

Chapel

Chapel detail

Interior, Santa Maria del Redentore

Bill