Wallpapering Dumpsters?

Wallpapering dumpsters? That's what the artist Finley (her last name, and the only one she uses) does. She does it in New York City, where these pictures were taken by Rob Bennett for today's New York Times, whose Penelope Green got the scoop. But she also does it in Rome, where she lives--and we don't mean Rome, New York.

Ours minds are boggled. Wouldn't Finley have to move mountains of garbage just to get access to Rome's bins? Where goes she find the wallpaper, from our experience a commodity as rare in Rome as Kraft processed cheese slices (which by the way are delicious)? How will Rome's mayor--an ex-thug who detests art and has failed to get the dumpsters emptied on a timely basis (how difficult can that be?) react to Finley's guerilla tactics? Will Romans, who have rejected carpeting for their homes because of a genetic fondness for the unadorned surface, turn away from the wallpapered dumpster in disgust? Stay tuned. And if you come upon one of Finley's creations, send a photo our way.

Bill

RST Top 40. #30 Zaha Hadid's MAXXI

Only a few months ago we had Rialto Sant'Ambrogio, a hip and alternative cultural center, in this #30 spot on the Rome the Second Time Top 40. But it recently closed, perhaps a victim of Rome's ex-thug Mayor Gianni

Alemanno and his right-wing fear of creative and artistic endeavors. Whatever. Anyway, in its place we offer Zaha Hadid's new MAXXI gallery. Although spectacular inside and out, it's arguably already an anachronism: a symbol not only of the affluent 1990s, when the project was conceived, but of the liberal mayors who once governed Rome and cared about the arts. As you'll see below, our take on MAXXI is not usual one.

For more on MAXXI, ,as part of a walking itinerary of Flaminio, see our new book, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  Along with the tour of Flaminio and, across the river, Mussolini's Foro Italico (also site of the 1960 Olympics), Modern Rome features three other walks: the 20th-century "garden" suburb of Garbatella, the Mussolini-built suburb of EUR; and a stairways walk in classic Trastevere.  More on the book is at the end of this post.

A "Conversation" with Nicolai Ouroussoff
We have great admiration for Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architectural critic of the New York Times. His views of modern architecture have always seemed to us smart and judicious, based on knowledge leavened by common sense; we thought we were on the same page. And so we were surprised on a recent Sunday (12/20/09), in a story in the Times that discussed (among other structures) Zaha Hadid's recently completed MAXXI--Rome's national museum of 21st century art--to find Mr. Ouroussoff expressing opinions with which we didn't agree. It's not Mr. Ouroussoff's opinion of the building that we don't share, but rather his understanding of the area--the Flaminio district--in which the building is located, and his view of the building's relationship to its surroundings.

"The museum's sinuous concrete forms," he writes, "which seem to draw energy from the surrounding streets, play a game of hide and seek with the neighborhood. [See photo at right, for the "hide-and-seek effect Mr. Ouroussoff describes.] Tucked mid-block between rows of nondescript buildings, it is less about the hard sell than the slow seduction." (In November he had written something similar: "Its sensual lines seem to draw the energy of the city right up into its belly, making everything about it look timid.") Later in this Sunday's piece he writes about MAXXI's "ability to infuse a drab, lifeless neighborhood," "a derelict postwar area at the far edge of Rome's historic center," "with a sense of joy." In his November comments, he said this about the neighborhood:. "The museum stands in a drowsy neighborhood of early 20th-century apartment buildings and former army barracks called Flaminio."

There's much of interest in these remarks, and we will try to simplify things. Mr. Ouroussoff thinks Ms. Hadad's MAXXI is a very powerful and sensual building, and that it is located in a miserable neighborhood--"drab," "lifeless," "derelict" (except that the neighborhood, despite its lifelessness, seems to have energy on which the building can draw, bringing the city "right up into its belly"). Is the building good for the neighborhood? Here Mr. Ouroussoff is not clear. On the one hand, MAXXI "makes everything around it look timid," which doesn't sound good. On the other hand, it infuses the neighborhood with "a sense of joy," which does sound good.

Our differences with Mr. Ouroussoff start with the neighborhood.
(See the aerial photo at right, looking south). The immediate neighborhood--the streets immediately surrounding the new museum, are not the most lively or fascinating in Rome; several schools and state installations are located nearby. But Flaminio is not Detroit or Newark or Cleveland or Dayton. We lived in Flaminio for 3 months in 2008. Only a few hundred feet west from MAXXI on via Guido Reni is a thriving indoor market, a crowded bakery, and many other shops and coffee bars. Less than three blocks south and southwest from the new museum is the active commercial and residential corridor of viale del Vignola and, just beyond, a humming via Fracassini. On the northeast side of the museum, Piazza dei Caracci is home to one of our favorite wine bars (photo at left) and a large, well-appointed coffee bar that's busy all day.





But Mr. Ouroussoff makes it seem as if MAXXI is coming to the rescue of a sleepy, even "derelict" neighborhood with little going on. Nothing could be further from the truth. Without or without MAXXI, the area is a hub of cultural offerings and impressive modern architecture. A quarter mile to the east, across the trolley tracks of via Flaminia, stands a playful complex of buildings known as Parco della Musica (photo below). Designed by Renzo Piano, it is to Rome as the Kennedy Center is to Washington, D.C--except more inviting and accessible. Nearby are the buildings designed for the 1960 Olympic games, including a multi-building housing complex of considerable architectural merit, and Pier Luigi Nervi's famous Palazetto dello Sport. To the east down via Guido Reni, and just across the Tevere (just off the right/west edge of the aerial photo), is one of Fascism's monumental works of architectural modernism: the Foro Italico, designated the Foro Mussolini when it was unveiled in 1927. Ms. Hadad's MAXXI joins these works; it confirms Flaminio's claim to be (along with EUR) the heart of Rome modernism.


We are left with the building's impact on the neighborhood, on the streets around it. As I understand Mr. Ouroussoff, he isn't sure whether the building provides energy to the surrounding streets (infusing them with a "sense of joy"), or sucks the life out of them ("makes everything look timid"). The second alternative gets my vote. The back of the building is just an enormous concrete wall (note that one never sees photos of it), shunning neighbors and pedestrians. The front opens on an enormous, empty, lifeless, pedestrian-only plaza of the sort we've seen before and that never work (think the Albany Mall, although it's not quite that bad). People don't eat lunch in these plazas, or walk in them (and why should they? the bars are cosier, and the city streets more entertaining). Maybe some kids will use it to kick a ball around. Like most modern, concrete plazas, the function of this one is to display the building, to make a spectacle of it--and it does that well.

But to spectacularize MAXXI, worthy as that goal may be, the neighborhood and its residents must be held at arm's length, as in the photo at right. Jane Jacobs, who understood how cities function--and how they don't--would understand.

Bill

As noted above, MAXXI  - both its front and back - are featured in the Flaminio walk in 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.

Mapping Rome

We love maps, and we detest GPS systems--at least when used in Rome. Maps help one understand a city, deep down; GPS gets you from point A to point B, but its micro-focus guarantees that you won't know much about how the city is laid out and functions.

We recently bought the map shown here. It's a copy, printed in Rome in 2004. The title is Rome Presente e Avvenire (Rome Present and Future). It's not a Rome-the-Second-Time map; we've lived in seven Rome neighborhoods, and only one of them--just to the east of via della Lungara--is on the map.

And that's what makes it fascinating. On the southwest side of town, the Marconi area where we spent one pleasant (except for the filthy streets) spring, doesn't yet exist. To the southeast, development pretty much ends at San Giovanni in Laterano, at least a mile from our apartment a few blocks from Piazza Re di Roma. Northeast, there isn't much development beyond viale della Regina Margherita; the Piazza Bologna area, the site of two itineraries in Rome the Second Time and one of our favorite places, doesn't yet exist. And to the northwest, there isn't much of anything beyond the walls of the Vatican. Inside the city, the map shows something called Aqua Mariana flowing from Parco della Caffarella through Circo Massimo, and today's village-like neighborhood of San Saba is mostly farmland. The black areas on the map are demolitions.

So, what's a good date for the map? We welcome your help in figuring out just what it is we bought!

Bill

RST Top 40. #31: Protestant Cemetery

"It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place."

It's hard to top Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley's take on Rome's Non-Catholic (usually referred to as Protestant) Cemetery, and shortly after penning these words, in 1822 he drowned off the coast of Italy and was buried here.

There are myriad reasons to put the Protestant Cemetery in Rome the Second Time's Top 40, including visiting the graves of figures such as Shelley, fellow Romantic Poet John Keats, and 20th-century Italian intellectual atheist Antonio Gramsci, who died in 1937 under police guard in a Rome hospital (having spent a decade in Fasicst prisons).

Another reason to visit is simply its lushness and quiet, especially compared to the zaniness that is Rome. It's a lovely break from one of the most congested of areas, the Porta San Paolo, right outside the Cemetery walls. A third is the spectacular - and perhaps best - view of the Pyramid.

The Protestant Cemetery has been much better maintained in the past few years, with regular (!) visiting hours, a newsletter, and a very helpful website in English.

The Cemetery appears in Rome the Second Time as part of Itinerary 4 at pages 71-72, and note the correction on Shelley's heart (now that should tempt you to check it out) in our post of May 5, 2009.

Dianne

Italy, on the Surface

Ingrid Rowland's December 17 review of The Hand of Palladio in the New York Review of Books is as much about the book's author, architect Paolo Portoghesi, as it is about Palladio. We were intrigued by the focus, having written on this blogsite about Portoghesi's Roman mosque (designed 1975; see our June 17 post) and having admired his lobby for Rome's Hotel de la Minerve (above). Rowland labels these works "dream visions," then moves on to this remarkable paragraph:

"These works have a terrible poignancy now, reminders as they are of the optimistic Italy that pulled itself from postwar destitution by sheer force of imagination--Fellini was in many ways a maker of documentaries, not fantasies--and unrelenting work. The mosque of Rome, despite its modern materials, still revels in craftsmanship, as can be seen from the specially cast prefabricated columns, the intricate mosaics, the chandeliers and fountains. That same loving care of surface shines forth in every aspect of Italian life: in Fellini, Raphael, Titian, Vivaldi; in Marcello Mastroianni's swagger, Sophia Loren's vitality, La Dolce Vita--but then it was another Italian, the Roman sage Vitruvius, who declared that perfection can be achieved only by following through on every detail of ornament. Decoration in Italy is always more than superficial embellishment; it is the essence of true civility."

Reading this passage, we were reminded of the Italian insistence on la bella figura and, more concretely, of the pristine white tops favored by many Italian women, in seeming defiance of gurgling babies and life's inevitable spills; of the care with which Italians wrap anything and everything, from a piece of fish to a bottle of wine; of those lovely notebooks, with their silver corners and Florentine covers; of the glittering surfaces of any coffee bar, toweled clean and shined at the barrista's every opportunity; and even of Berlusconi, the politican as spectacle and surface, uninterested in the hard work and compromise that genuine political leadership requires.

We were reminded of Italian postwar leadership in fashion and modern design, fields that are all about wrapping people and things in cloth and plastic and metal, all about surface. The examples are many, but they surely include Marcello Nizzoli's 1950 Lettera 22 typewriter and Corradino D'Ascanio's 1955 Vespa. The Piergiorgio Branzi 1960 photo at left
is all about surface: not only the shell of the Vespa, but the self-consciously casual pose of the man in the foreground, observing even more surface: the filming of a story about ancient Rome, made on the steps of one of Rome's modern art museums.

Rowland made us think, too, of the playful creations of Ettore Sottsass, in whose hands household objects were transformed from useful things into games and sculptures. At right, Sottsass' Carlton Bookcase (1981). Consistent with Rowland's overview and chronology, the utopian Radical Design movement with which Sottsass was affiliated was launched in the 1960s and was in decline by 1980, as the ebulient optimism that sustained it was gradually undermined.

But we remain less than fully convinced of the truth of Rowland's compelling claim. To illustrate our lingering doubts, we offer these comments on La Dolce Vita, Fellini's 1960 masterpiece.
It is undeniably about the superficiality of postwar Italian bourgeoisie culture. But our observer of that culture, Mastroianni's Marcello, while attracted to the surfaces he finds, is also disturbed, alienated, and bored. Surfaces beguile, but they are not enough--and are hardly, in Vetruvius' words, "the essence of true civility."

Bill