Il Fungo: Rome's Mid-Century Modern Architecture

Il Fungo, in the distance, center, from Via Cavalcanti

It's always a pleasure to find something new and unexpected in a city we've visited so many times.  It happened in the fall, when our Roman friend M., helping us move into an apartment on Via Cavalcanti in Trastevere, and scanning the view from our 4th floor balcony, pointed out an odd-shaped building in the distance, halfway between (from our perspective), EUR's Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana--the square coliseum--and the Church of Saints "something and something" (thanks, Dianne).  That's the "Fungo," he said.  Fungo means mushroom. 

So we took the Metro to EUR, got off at the Marconi stop and walked south on the west (right) fork of Via Cristoforo Colombo, crossing the Laghetto (little lake) and on about 1/4 mile, up a small hill to the right, to Piazza Pakistan, the site of Il Fungo. Note the Fungo is on the EUR itinerary in our new book, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  More information on the book is at the end of this post

The Fungo, c. 1960

At 164.04 feet high, the Fungo is a striking structure, especially for low-rise Rome and, as we later discovered, it has an interesting history.  It was a late-comer to the EUR project, which was begun by the Fascist regime in the late 1930s to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the March on Rome (1922), then mostly completed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, about the time that the people in charge of EUR came up with the idea behind Il Fungo.  They envisioned large green spaces for this model suburb, and that meant irrigation.  And they were concerned that the proliferation of new buildings was outpacing the ability to fight fires. 

Il Fungo, as it looks today

Solution: the Fungo, a water tower (serbatoio idrico).  A team of engineers and architects (R. Colosimo, S. Varisco, A. Capozza, A. Martinelli) produced a tower of reinforced concrete, with 8, 5-sided pilasters, and room enough on top for a restaurant that, in the original plans (but not as constructed), was to rotate (like the one atop Seattle's Space Needle, 605 feet high and built for the 1962 World Expo) [see photo below].  Il Fungo was completed in 1960. 

Seattle's Space Needle (1962)

The original restaurant, owned for a time by the tenor Mario di Monaco, closed in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and the building went into disrepair.  The decline was arrested about a decade later, when a new restaurant opened and repairs and changes were made, including the repositioning of the windows, which in the original version had tilted outward from top to bottom and in the 1990 incarnation tilt inward to more easily shed rain water. 

Top of the Fungo

Though the restaurant never did rotate, this defect has not prevented diners from enjoying the spectacular view; one website recently included Ristorante Il Fungo on its list of "The 15 Most Stunning Dining Experiences in the World."  We'll bet the check is stunning too, though we must confess to not having seen the menu.  Here's the relevant info: 1/A Piazza Pakistan, 00144.  Phone 39 06 592 1980.  Lunch and dinner M-F, Sunday dinner only. 

At least two films of significance utilize the Fungo.  Michelango Antonioni's black and white drama L'Eclisse (The Eclipse) [1962], presents the Fungo as a symbol of alienation (a big theme in Italian films of that era).  The film begins with Vittoria (Monica Vitti), having concluded her relationship with Riccardo, looking from an apartment to find succor in the landscape, but seeing, instead, the Fungo, a product a mechanistic modernism, even, perhaps, in its shape, symbolic of the threat of nuclear disaster. 

Il Fungo appears again in Adulterio all'Italiana (Adultery Italian Style), a 1966 film starring Nino Manfredi and Catherine Spaak.  This clip from YouTube includes a scene filmed at the restaurant (scroll through to about the 6-minute mark) and another, on ground level (at about 8 minutes). 

Banca di Roma uses Fungo for
advertising

Although the original Fungo was not, we think, designed to support advertising (though we're not sure about that), it was inevitable that some company would want its name up there. 

It's sad, but perhaps not as sad as what happened to the E. Clem Wilson building at Wilshire and La Brea in Los Angeles.  Completed in 1930, the Wilson building was used as the Daily Planet on the first television production of Superman
(1951-).  That building, too, fell victim to advertisers, and now sports a particularly ugly version of the Samsung name. 

On a lighter note, we enjoyed our expedition to one of Rome's more unusual buildings.  Although we haven't yet tried the restaurant on top, we did have beers and sandwiches at an outdoor table on the ground floor, served by a lunch place inside.
Great views looking up at Il Fungo.  Thanks, M.
Bill

For more of EUR, see our new print AND eBook,  Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  Modern Rome 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.

A Farewell to Arms, and Hemingway's Thoughts on Rome

Shall we stay up tonight and read, dear?

Yes, let's do that.

We'll do it then.  It's a wonderful idea.  We'll have a great time.

Yes, we will.

What will you read dear?

I'll read A Farewell to Arms.  It's by Ernest Hemingway.

I've heard it's good.

I've heard it's good, too.

When was it published?

I don't know. What will you read, dear?

I'll read over your shoulder, dear.  You're so wonderful.

No, it's you that's wonderful.  You're so dear.  Come and read with me. 



Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, and Adolph Menjou in the
1932 version

 A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929.  It' a semi-autobiographical account of Ernest Hemingway's experiences as an ambulance driver in the Italian army in World War I.   We had read Mark Thompson's history of the conflict, The White War, and we couldn't resist Hemingway's story, which includes a combat injury and the retreat from Caporetto.  As the made-up lines above suggest, it's also a sentimental (if ultimately disturbing) love story.  In the book the Hemingway character speaks Italian, abeit with an accent. 

The story has been filmed twice.  The 1932 version starred Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes; the 1957 treatment featured Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.  Although Hudson more closely resembled the young Hemingway, it's the Cooper version we want to see.  Unfortunately, Deborah Kerr, the ideal Catherine Barkley, is in neither.

The Italian retreat from Caporetto

Events in the book take place entirely in northern Italy and Switzerland, a long way from Rome and a bit of reach even for the long arms of Rome the Second Time.  Yet Hemingway does offer some thoughts on the Eternal City, in the form of a conversation between Tenente Henry (Hemingway), the Major, and Rinaldi.  The Major and Rinaldi are Italian, and Rinaldi is Henry's best friend.  Henry is recuperating from a leg injury. 

The ruminations on Rome begin after several glasses of brandy.  The "I" is Henry:

We will get Corsica and all the Adriatic coast line, Rinaldi said.  Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major.  I don't like Rome, I said.  It is hot and full of fleas.  You don't like Rome?  Yes, I love Rome.  Rome is the mother of nations.   I will never forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What?  Nothing.  Let's all go to Rome.  Let's go to Rome to-night and never come back.  Rome is a beautiful city, said the major.  The mother and father  of nations, I said.  Roma is feminine, said Rinaldi.  It cannot be the father.  Who is the father, then, the Holy Ghost?  Don't blaspheme.  I wasn't blaspheming.  I was asking for information.  You are drunk, baby.  Who made me drunk?  I made you drunk, said the major.  I made you drunk because I love you and because America is in the war.  Up to the hilt, I said.  You go away in the morning, baby, Riunaldi said.  To Rome, I said.  No, to Milan.  To Milan, said to major, to the Crystal Palace, to the Cova, to Campari's, to Buffi's to the galleria.  :You lucky boy.



I'm sure Mr. Hemingway is a fine writer, dear, but he seems a trifle confused about Rome, don't you think?

Yes he does.

Let's go to Rome!  It would be splendid.  I don't believe it's full of fleas.  We could leave tomorrow.

That's a wonderful idea, dear.  You're so sweet.  We'll have breakfast in bed, and take the first train.  .

Bill

Suburban Surreal: Parco Leonardo

It was "Giorno della Mamma," Mother's Day (BTW, a creation of President Woodrow Wilson) and Dianne's reward for 38 years of Motherhood was a series of international films showing at Parco Leonardo's Hollywood-style mega multiplex, whose sleek, football-field size lobby is shown at right. Getting there was easy--a 20 minute train-ride from the Ostiense station--and the cinema tickets were cheap at less than E4 per film. We went to three films with short breaks between, all subtitled in English, and two (LOSS [Lithuania] and TEARS of APRIL [Finland])were of considerable merit. All three films, and the festival generally, were sparsely attended (our films averaged about 6 people per screening). Of course, it was Mother's Day.

Having arrived at the Parco (named after da Vinci) early, we toured the suburban development, which might be described as a high-rise, grid-based Pleasantville, with a dash of West World. These could be the cleanest streets in all of Lazio, but also the most surreal, partly because they're not really streets, since cars are kept at the perimeter, and most Romans arrive, like us, by train. Although many of Parco Leonardo's large apartment buildings have commercial space on the ground floor (in typical Italian fashion), most of the stores are empty BECAUSE THEY BUILT A 2-STORY MALL NEXT DOOR--smart, huh?
Because the streets are so empty (the Mothers were all inside we suppose), any human activity looks weird. Case in point, the guy having a bite to eat at right, looking as if he were on the set of a Fellini movie.

Of the businesses that do exist, inside and outside the mall, one of favorite motifs is the Wild West (that isn't a misprint).
Our thought was that this would be nice for the kids, but by nightfall both of these places were jammed--one had people waiting outside to get in--with adults. Coincidentally, the ladies strolling
on the street at Parco Leonardo (below) had the look of gunslingers heading for trouble in a Kansas cow town.

The massive advertising display at the top of this post reads: "At Parco Leonardo, it's all about you."

One of Parco Leonardo's pecularities is that the rail station by which it is served has no stand to buy tickets and no machines that function (true both times we've made the trip). So if you got there, but don't have a ticket back, you're screwed (which means you get on the train without a ticket and grit your teeth hoping you don't get caught and fined). Bill