The Egyptian Academy: A Breath of Modernism in Valle Giulia

High modernist buildings are rare in Rome, and when we saw that the Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts was on the lists of sites for the annual OpenHouseRoma event, we couldn't resist.  We had been there once before, for an evening film screening, but had not seen much except for an interior stairway and the auditorium.  This would be different.

And it was, and wasn't.

The Academy, as it looked in the mid-1960s

The Egyptian Academy was founded in 1929, and for most of the following 30 years was located in one of the Emperor Nero's palaces on the Oppian Hill (Colle Oppio), across from the Coliseum.  In 1966 the Academy moved to its current location, at via Omero 4, in Valle Giulia, onto what one might call "academy row."  At the time it was the only Arab-African Academy in Europe.

Berlusconi (left) and Mubarak at opening of the remodeled
Academy, 2010

Little information is available about that building, except that it was subject to an extensive
remodeling under Egyptian architect Hatem Said early in the new century, reopening in 2010 to guests that included Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi.

We had parked our scooter down the hill and walked up, negotiating still another Rome stairway filled with trash.

The Academy facade, after an $8 million renovation.
Worth every cent.

The tour was scheduled to begin more than a half hour later, so we busied ourselves looking at a display of Egyptian modern art on the first floor.

The courtyard, from the interior

The remainder of our wait was spent in the superb, simple, square courtyard at the back of the building: grass, sculptures, places to sit, the frame of  rectilinear modernism recalling the Kennedy Center (1971) architecture of an earlier era.

As it turned out, the "tour" was of the Egyptian art we had already seen, as well as a subterranean museum of ancient Egyptian artifacts--not our fancy--not, at least, on this day.  We bailed out, headed for another venue.  And pleased to have experienced the pleasures of the Academy courtyard.

Bill

Progress....in Tuscolano!

Every edition of La Repubblica, Italy's rough equivalent of the New York Times, contains something--an article or a letter to the editor--about how dirty and unkempt Rome is.  RST couldn't agree more.  But now and then--this may be the first time, actually--we are surprised to observe a change for the better, some place that's been cleaned up in some substantial way, making a difference in the urban scene.

It happened not long ago, in the quartiere of Tuscolano, a gritty neighborhood near the (Tuscolano) train station.  As an exit strategy, we were spending two nights at the Holiday Inn Express, a modern hotel that's at most a 6-minute walk from the station, where we can catch the train for the Fiumicino airport for about 1/8 the cost of a taxi.

Anyway, while there we went to the station to buy tickets and check on times.  The route took us under the railway overpass.  In October of 2011, it looked like this:

Via Tuscolana, October 2011

Nine months later, our jaws dropped when we passed the same area.  A work crew had been through, clearing brush and debris.  Repairs had been made in the concrete.  One could actually sit here now.  And some advertisers had invested in the space.  You never know.

Via Tuscolana, July 2012

Bill

Rome 2nd Dirtiest City: Laments, and a Solution

We were disappointed--one might say devastated if it didn't seem hyperbolic--to learn that Rome had been named the second dirtiest big city in the world, after Athens. How to deal with this terrible news, this reminder, however deserved, of our failure as a city, as a people?

How could this have happened? We thought we had done everything possible: our big public trash bins--the "casonette"--are too few and too seldom emptied, guaranteeing that each will be surrounded by, and buried in, mounds of garbage most of the time. The skeletal remains of scooters, their bodies still chained to sign posts or trees, line the curbs. Because most cars once parked never have to move, a layer of unreachable debris accumulates underneath.


Rome's citizens have been doing their part, too. Last year the voters elected a right-wing mayor, whom they trusted to be appropriately disengaged from such mundane matters as "sporcizia" (filthiness), and they haven't been disappointed at his non-efforts. They have also cultivated and defended the right--it is close to a duty here--to throw all manner of stuff--cigarette butts, gum, candy wrappers, advertising circulars, plastic bags (a local favorite), unpaid bills, love notes, bits of food--on the ground, where they belong. The city's dogs have been trained to avoid public parks and use the neighborhood sidewalks, knowing that their owners will leave their doings where they fall. Bravi!


Our public authorities and workers are also to be congratulated, especially for ignoring mounds of trash on Metro stairs and along rail lines at stations, where litter contributes notes of sparkle and color to an otherwise drab view from the platform.


We're aware that in other countries, and other cities, volunteers (we're not aware of any Italian equivalent of this word) will now and then organize to clean up a neighborhood, a street, or a stream bed; or merchants or condominum owners will take action to insure that the sidewalks where they work and live are washed and swept. Fortunately, no such bizarre ideas have taken root in the Roman mind. Borrowing from the thoughtful, socially advanced, residents of the state of New Hampshire, we can only add, "Live Free or Die!"

Yes, despite our best efforts, we've failed. To be sure, Rome has easily defeated such priggish cities as London and Genoa, where they use machines to sweep the streets and--you won't believe this--lawnmowers in the parks. Beneath contempt. And we have overcome the odds to finish ahead of Palermo and Naples, where the garbage is never picked up, as well as New Delhi, Mexico City, and Chernobyl. But second to Athens? Humiliating!

Cosa c'e' da fare? What's to be done? How can we get over the hump, or "over the dump" (ha, ha). It's a tough order, because Athens is no slouch at filth, and we can imagine our Greek counterparts hard at work hatching new ways to make their city dirtier.

Still, we have one suggestion that can't help but intrigue our readers, and that may just do the trick: bring back public urination. The great advantage, need we say, would be to add a new level of odor to the city--a pungent reminder, for the history buffs, of Rome's medieval period. Yes, this solution might result in the elimination of restrooms, public and private, and with them, no doubt, would go some of the "points" the city earned in the recent competition for "most disgusting and nauseating toilets"--a strong point in our application. But the city's 20 million tourists would be grateful that they could now pee anywhere; they'd be sure to come back, again and again, just to experience the return of this delightful custom.
Bill