GECO in Rome: Art or Egotism?

 

The building in the photo is a public market on Via Magna Grecia (we wrote 10 years ago about the market and Morandi), not from the the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano. It was designed by Riccardo Morandi, a well-known and admired engineer in his day, whose reputation has since been tarnished by the collapse in 2018 of the "Morandi" bridge in Genoa, which Morandi also designed. The circular parking ramp at the far end of the building--not visible in the photo--is nothing short of lovely. But in light of the Genoa debacle, it has been closed.

The letters at the top/end of the building are not part of Morandi's design. They are work of Lorenzo Perris, a 32-year-old Roman who until 18 months ago was anonymous, known only for the letters GECO--Perris's "tag." Over the last few years, Perris has done his GECO thing on hundreds of buildings, most of them in Rome and some in Lisbon. Sometimes with paint, but more often with paste-ups. The letters on Morandi's building are most likely large paste-ups. He also uses smaller stickers on signs--and anything else he can find to affix them to.  

A GECO sticker on a motor scooter, outside our apartment on  via Tuscolana

Perris, who resides in the Via Prenestina area of Rome, has recently been accused of damaging many of Rome's buildings with his tags. Just how many buildings have been "damaged" is not clear, nor is the extent of the damage, but the legal complaint filed against Perris charges that his work has appeared on the Central State Archive building, on the benches along the Tevere near Porta Portese, on the Arch of Quattro Venti, in Villa Pamphili, in Via Ardeatine, and at the Parco degli Acquedotti (Park of the Aqueducts -- #2 on RST's Top 40), among many others. Authorities claim to have confiscated some 13,000 of his works. 

In the San Lorenzo quarter

The authorities, and the folks at the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, not only believe Perris's GECOs to be damaging, but they are convinced that his "bombing" is entirely lacking in artistic merit. 

Perris seems to agree with the critics. In 2018, when interviewed during a sojourn in Lisbon--Rome having become too "hot," a place where he was more likely to be caught (and identified), even though he works only at night or at dawn--Perris admitted to being a "bombardier," whose style did not differ from city to city. 

"I want to spread my name," he added, more than to develop and sharpen an aesthetic sensibility. "The prime objective of the aggressor [that is, him] is quantity....My objective is to be everywhere and be seen and known by everyone. I see graffiti as a sport--an illegal one. It's as if I were a superhero; the more one is exposed, the more one must be anonymous. The world of graffiti is pure egocentrism, in my case a veritable megalomania. I want to attract the attention of everyone and to provoke feelings, whether of love or hate."

Bill 

Graffiti GECO, 2020

"Googie" architecture: in Rome

If you've spent time in Los Angeles, or Las Vegas, or even Seattle, you'll have some knowledge of "googie" architecture, even if you don't know the name.  Associated with the 1950s, the style features a futuristic feel, produced by sharp and odd angles, sweeping arches, boomerang and pallette

Gas station, Los Angeles

shapes, zig-zag lines, and atom motifs.  In Los Angeles, where it took its name from "Googies," a coffee shop designed by modernist architect John Lautner, it is usually found in gas stations, fast food restaurants, and coffee shops, though there's a superb example at LAX, the city's main airport, where the Theme Building, completed by Pereira and Luckman architects in 1961, greets visitors with its space-age glow.

Italy had its boom years, too, but it didn't participate with quite the same intensity in the catalysts of the googie moment--the space age and the era's car culture--and so outstanding examples of the style, especially in Rome, are few.  In fact, the word "few" may overestimate.  Still, googie enthusiasts might have some success in the San Giovanni area, easily accessed by the Metro, where a construction boom in the 1950s and 1960s yielded several buildings with some relationship to Googie.

Garage, Metronio Market

Back of Metronio Market

Two are on via Magna Grecia, a major thoroughfare running south from the San Giovanni Metro stop.  As you walk south, the first you'll come across is Ricardo Morrandi's Metronio Market.  Its outstanding feature is the playful circular garage, but the two long sides of the triangular facade are also of interest, with their accordion-like window treatments.  The market opened in 1957.

Piccadilly Hotel, once a movie theater

Another, a bit further along, is the lower facade of what is now the Piccadilly Hotel, and was once a movie theater: the googie is in the dark forms which bore the name of the cinema and in the multi-angled canopy below. (The closed cinemas are the protagonists in an Italian film, "Fantasmi Urbani: Inchiesta sui cinema chiusi da Roma" - "Urban ghosts - An investigation into Rome's closed cinemas". You can see a trailer on YouTube - look for hints of googie.)

Across the street, still on via Magna Grecia--perhaps across from the market--you'll see a 1960-vintage apartment building, sandwiched between two structures in the more-familiar neo-classical style.  The angled balconies participate in the "googie" mode.

Not the best photo for this purpose. The "pallette" ceiling
is upper left.  

Continuing south on via Magna Grecia, turn right on via Gallia.  In the second block, on the left side of the street, just past the church, is Bar Clementi.  It's a great place for a coffee--it was our regular coffee bar for two months--and one doesn't have to pay extra to sit down.  And while you're there, note the pallette-shaped ceiling, right out of a googie textbook.  Ceilings such as this one, which invoke the space age, are quite common in Rome bars.

Angled balconies, via Gallia

Exiting Bar Clementi and continuing west on via Gallia, you'll find another set of cleverly angled
balconies.  Another tribute to googie.

Bill

A hint of "googie" in the shape of the shields for the lettering
of a dancehall, "Stellarium," in Appio Latino, 2008

Rear of the Appio Latino dancehall, with its mushroom roof