Happy 4th Birthday RST - of Meier, Mosques and Kebabs

Richard Meier's suburban Tor Tre Teste church - Number 1 on the blog.  
That's Dianne at left. 

Having reached a couple milestones recently – 4 years of blogging as of today (Feb. 17) and more than 400 posts (the 400th went up November 20 – the rather esoteric Hamlet in the Weeds on sculptor Amleto Cataldi), it seems appropriate to look back and share some statistics with our loyal readers.

Amazingly enough (to us), several of the top 5 posts, and even the top 10, remain remarkably consistent from day to day, month to month, year to year.

And, you probably couldn’t guess the consistent posts in the top 5 – at least we couldn’t if Google Analytics didn’t tell us every day.

Coming in routinely in the top 5 are: Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church (Tor Tre Teste), the post on kebabs (Bill, you were right on that one),  Europe’s largest mosque.  Posts on Fascist architecture - which is the subject of dozens of posts - also regularly rank high  The post on Meier's church and the one on kebabs appeared 2-1/2 years ago, and the mosque 3-1/2.  But their popularity never seems to wane.  The church and the mosque are both on RST's Top 40 list, coming in at 17 and 24, respectively.

Inside Portoghesi's mosque

Architectural works by “starchitects” often appear in the top 10: E.g., besides Meier and Paolo Portoghesi (the mosque), Zaha Hadid and Massimiliano Fuksas.

The all-time top 10 includes three reasonably accessible tourist sites: Foro Mussolini/Foro Italico (#5 on the RST top 40), Piazza Augusto Imperatore (# 9), and Garbatella (#16).  And one suburb where tourists seldom venture: Centocelle. 

Readers have also been drawn to the rich and famous, like Elizabeth Taylor.

We learn from Google Analytics, not surprisingly, that the US is the top country, in terms of readers of the blog, with Italy second.  The third may be surprising, however, - it’s Russia (spammers, maybe?), followed by the English-speaking countries of the UK, Canada and Australia.  Of interest, perhaps only to computer wonks, our readers come in more through Safari than any other search engine, followed by Firefox, then Chrome, and only 4th, Explorer. But for operating systems, Windows is used twice as much as Mac.  Go figure.

Back to content: romethesecondtime is what is known as a “content blog” – we’d have to be that after 4 years of this!  We continue to be surprised at Meier’s staying power, along with the mosque and kebabs.

So next time you go to Rome, head for Portoghesi’s mosque, and be sure to pick up a kebab outside (if it’s market day).

Dianne

Eating Ethnic: Rome's Kebab

We have been coming to Rome regularly for 17 years, and not until our last visit did we eat a Kebab. I had been longing to try the Roman version of this Mediterranean/Middle Eastern fast food, and one night, when the trattorias were closing and it seemed to late for the standard plate of pasta, I succeeded in muscling Dianne into Asterix 2, on via Ostiense. (You shouldn't have difficult finding a Kebab shop in Rome, but if you do, there's a website that lists them all--and even rates the Top 10: http://digilander.libero.it/romakebab/

The Kebab resembles the Greek "gyro," the latter so-named because the meat gyrates/turns on a spit as it is cooked.  But the dozens of Kebab shops in Rome are owned not by Greeks but by Egyptians, Turks, and Kurds, and the sliced meat for which the gyro is known--lamb--has been replaced in Rome by veal or, in most cases, a combination of veal and turkey. Kebab Valenziani (via Augusto Valenziani, 14), an Egyptian shop [see photo],
serves three meats from separate spiedi: beef, veal, and chicken. Most shops offer two kinds of bread: an Arab bread often made on site, and the familiar Italian Ciabatta. Condiments vary, and include hot sauce, sesame sauce, yogurt, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, olives, onions, green peppers, carciofi and, perhaps in a concession to the Greek tradition, feta cheese.

We ordered ours with "everything" and were aghast at the size of the thing. One serves two, and seated on stools in the cramped shop, we passed the Kebab back and forth about 10 times, along with a Diet Coke. Fresh, great range of flavors, healthy ingredients.
A starving writer could live on one of these a day. Although some will prefer to "portare via" (take out, literally carry away) their Kebabs, we recommend dining in, enjoying the colorful interiors that many of the shops present. The photo is of Asterix 2 (we think).  You'll see it looks nothing like Eataly, which opened in Rome this summer.  Nor does it have the art to go with food that we savor in EUR at Caffe' Palombini, but it has it's own ambiance, one could say.

Sadly, the Kebab is understood as an "ethnic" food and has begun to suffer from the anti-immigrant sentiment currently infecting Italian politics. Berlusconi's center-right national government has been supporting local efforts to ban ethic foods. One such effort is underway in Lucca--the site of 4 Kebab outlets--where the city fathers voted to ban any new ethic food shops, and another has been launched in Milan, with support from the conservative (and anti-immigrant) Northern League.  These are no doubt the same folks who find Europe's largest mosque - in Rome - disturbing.

Minister of Agriculture Luca Zaia, asked if he had ever eaten a Kebab, replied, "No--and I defy anyone to prove the contrary. I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto."

Our advice, Luca, is try one.

Bill

RST Top 40. #24: Rome's Signature and Europe's Largest Mosque

With some trepidation (but no doubt about its merits), we offer the Rome mosque, the largest mosque in Europe, as #24 in Rome the Second Time's Top 40. It's a magnificent structure, with some interesting controversy in its planning (why wouldn't there be, with an enormous Muslim landmark in the center of Catholicism's spiritual and administrative and, in every other way, home?).

I loved it instantly. I think Bill took some warming, including some high praise by Ingrid Rowland in a New York Review of Books article on Tiepolo where she devotes substantial coverage to the mosque's architect, Paolo Portoghesi (Bill wrote about this in his January 2 blog - here's the link to it: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2010/01/italy-on-surface.html).

Rather than repeat everything I said last June, I'll supply the link to the June 27, 2009 post below, and add a few new comments.

While our primary interest in the mosque is architectural, the religious issues are intriguing as well. One author claims the gorgeous, massive mosque is deserted, abandoned for other, smaller, more active mosques (http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout&cid=1228244896427). But another argues that the imam at the main Rome mosque is preaching jihad (http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/6953?eng=y). Both articles are linked here. You be the judge.

In any event, a visit is definitely in our Top 40. Just remember visiting hours for non-Muslims are limited - Wednesday and Saturday 9-11:30; women MUST wear head coverings. And, Fridays are the most active days, including the market outside the mosque gates - for everyone.

Here's the link to the earlier post: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2009/06/europes-largest-mosque-in-rome.html, which includes directions at the end and many more photos.

The trepidation I mentioned at the beginning derives from the traffic our blog gets from surfers who seem highly interested in "mosque", but not so much in Rome. We're not exactly anxious to set them off again! But we can't fail to put this wonderful 20th-century architectural statement in Rome the Second Time's Top 40.

Dianne

Europe's largest mosque - in Rome

The principal mosque in Rome is a world apart from the rest of this very Catholic city. Its postmodern decor is reserved; it has wide open spaces—corridors in the open air--and repetitious designs; it’s set in a green space divorced from any other city structures. After all the baroque churches of Rome, even my favorites by Borromini (who also loved repetition built into the architecture of his churches - I think he would have loved this building complex), I find the mosque beautiful and serene, an almost ethereal structure. Bill says it borders on boring (maybe all that Renaissance architecture is getting in his blood).

We both recommend a visit – Wednesday and Saturday 9:30-11 a.m. only, and of course then it is devoid of worshippers, which gives it an eerily empty feeling. (Directions at the end of this post.)

Women: be sure to wear something that covers your arms, no shorts, and you’ll need a scarf to cover your head. I was alert enough to wear appropriate clothing, but had no idea about the scarf and was lucky enough to borrow one from another visitor. Only a few visitors – you can wander around the mosque’s many separate sections on your own, and a couple group tours (all in Italian) were in evidence on a recent Wednesday morning.

It’s something of a miracle that the mosque, the largest in Europe, stands in Rome at all. It took the blessing of Pope John Paul II for it to be built. Controversy resulted in a minaret slightly less tall than St. Peter’s dome (39 meters (128 feet) vs. St. Peter’s 40 (130 feet), but the mosque is built in a very low area of Rome, so the minaret and main building are hardly visible from any distance, and no real threat to the imposing St. Peter’s dome, not too far away. The architectural competition was won by Paolo Portoghesi (with his then partner Vittorio Gigliotti and Iraqi architect Sami Mousawi) in 1976 and the building opened in 1995, funded mainly by Saudi money.

The mosque complex is nestled in a park-like area at the base of the ritzy Parioli district and very near a vast expanse of sports complexes along Acqua Acetosa (literally "vinegary water," but to the Italians that means very good water, a place Goethe liked to visit as well). And speaking of water, there wasn't much in evidence at the mosque. Like many other Rome monuments, the water supposed to be coursing down the main steps was not, and appeared not to have been running for some time.

A bonus: outside the mosque a large food stand was set up with a Muslim man and woman selling all types of prepared food. Of course, we went away with a large box of pistachio and honey-based desserts. A large market operates outside the mosque on Friday mornings, but you can’t visit on Fridays.

There is surprisingly little written on the mosque. See the following site for detailed architectural information: http://www.archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=1074 or, if you're lucky, find Frederika Randall's 1995 Wall Street Journal article. The city of Rome has some information in a badly - even humorously - translated website (the architects aren't Portuguese; one of the last names is Portoghese) at http://en.turismoroma.it/scoprire_roma/roma_religiosa/la_moschea Ingrid Rowland, writing about Palladio describes the elegance of the mosque in her New York Review of Books piece, covered by Bill in a later post.

Directions: from the Rome center: take the train just outside Piazza del Popolo (Metro A from Termini to Flaminio/Popolo) to the Campo Sportivi stop (you can use your same metro ticket – but this is the train, not the metro; the station is outside, north of Piazza del Popolo, on the side of Villa Borghese), and head back towards the city, towards the minaret, which you can see from there.

Dianne - and see our RST Top 40 piece on this signature mosque. For a bit more on Rome's ethnic presence, see a couple posts on Romanians (the gladiator controversy and a newsstand , the Pigneto neighborhood, Chinese (and other) stores near Piazza Vittorio, and some immigration controversy.  Oh, yes, and do eat a kebab.