Bruno Zevi: Rome's Architectural Theorist

Bruno Zevi is widely regarded as one of great architectural theorists of the 20th century.  Writing in The Guardian on the occasion of Zevi's death in 2000, Thomas Muirhead opined that Zevi's two early books on architectural theory, Vero l'architettura organica/Towards Organic Architecture (1935) and
Sapere Vedere la Citta/How to Understand the City (1948) "alone place Zevi among the greatest historians and theoreticians."

Bruno Zevi

Born to an elite Jewish family in Rome in 1918, Zevi studied architecture at the University of Rome,  served in the Italian military, and engaged in clandestine anti-Fascist activities.  Forced to leave the country in 1939 by the new racial laws, he made his way to England and then the United States, earning a graduate degree at Harvard's School of Design, then led by Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus.  He returned to Italy in 1944, quickly emerging as a prominent figure in Italy's architectural circles while teaching architecture at the University of Venice, and later, after 1963, at the University of Rome. 

Zevi's major contribution to architectural theory was what he called "organic architecture," a term apparently coined by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1908. "Organic architecture" has more definitions than the Eskimos have words for snow (yes, we know, a myth), but it's safe to say that for Zevi it meant a democratic, humanistic architecture centered around people and linked to nature and its surroundings.  Zevi was deeply opposed to both the cold, ahuman modernism of Gropius and the abstract principles of order, proportion and symmetry that governed classical forms.  "When Gropius, Mies [van der Rohe] and [Alvar] Aalto produced [symmetrical buildings]," he wrote, "it was an act of surrender.  Lacking a modern code, they weakened and regressed to the familiar womb of classicism."  Identifying classical symmetry with power and dominance--and with the Mussolini Fascism that he detested--Zevi advocated an organic architecture grounded in asymmetry, rupture, dissonance and fragmentation.

That's clear enough (or it isn't), but it can be difficult to visualize Zevi's philosophy.  He didn't design much of anything, in Rome or elsewhere.  So how can the Rome tourist, or for that matter anyone, get a visual handle on Zevi's ideas? 

EUR/architecture of symmetry and power

We can begin with what he detested: the pompous, symmetrical, monumental buildings of Marcello Piacentini, the chief architect of EUR.  No rupture, no dissonance, no fragmention.  This architecture was all about power--power over Italy's colonies, Fascism's power over its subjects.  For similar (tho distinct) reasons--again, the issue of power was in play for him--he was critical of Bernini's St. Peter's Square. 


Studio Passarelli

And then there are the Rome buildings, and their Rome architects, that Zevi admired.  One such building, completed in 1964, just as Zevi was taking up his position at the University of Rome, was the Studio Passarelli, on via Campania.  Designed by Lucio Passarelli, it's a curious combination of modernist box and building-blocks top, just the sort of rupture that Zevi encouraged and applauded. 

Studio Passarelli, upper floors

Zevi was particularly fond of another building, this one in the suburban Piazza Bologna neighborhood, and of its architect, Piero Sartogo.  The two men met for the first time in 1971 when the building, the headquarters of the Rome Medical Association, was under construction, "a few yards" from where Zevi lived.  Zevi demanded that Sartogo appear at the site, immediately, and when he did, "I found the great critic stopping passersby, grabbing them by the arm, pointing up to the building, and asking them, 'Isn't it beautiful?'" recalled Sartogo.  A tour of the building followed and, shortly thereafter,

Piero Sartogo's Medical Office Building

a Zevi column in L'Espresso in which the building was compared to a "tree with exposed roots" and its architect praised for an unconventional structure that stood against cold rationalism and confused postmodernism.







In  1973, Zevi described the Medical Office Building in the Chronache di Architettura, emphasizing how the structure's distinctive exterior elements reflected the various activities to be accomplished inside.  "The principle of contamination [of these activities] "is organically achieved.  This is not an anonymous container with a regular structural framework into which rooms fit like drawers in a

Medical Office Building

chest.  The pilasters are coupled, and when required, they slide into a horizontal position expanding into beam-walls to envelope the auditorium, the cantilevered seminar rooms, the double-height foyers, and the periodical library.  The result is an organism structurally engaged in modulating the interlocking continuity of the spaces and displaying their spatial volumes both inside and outside." 

Zevi explained, too, that the building had been controversial, not the least for those who were to occupy it.  In 1966, Italian physicians gasped at the design, comparing it to London's elegant Royal College of Physicians.  "Why," they asked, "can't we have a minimum of charm, elegance and refinement like our British colleagues?"  Sartogo and his collaborators had their answer:  "For the simple reason [as Zevi reports] that your Medical Association is not an ancient institution like the Royal College.  It neither possesses a previous art gallery or a series of extremely rare medical treatises.  We lack a cultural tradition in the professions, and those seemingly odd but prestigious rituals that establish status do not exist.  Furthermore, you have chosen a suburban location for your headquarters in a neighborhood full of apartment buildings: Do you want to erect a monument or a bogus Guild Hall?"  The Medical Office Building, Zevi concluded, was "one of the most interesting and provocative buildings in the city of Rome."

We discovered the building while plotting one of two Piazza Bologna itineraries for Rome the Second Time.  The Medical Office Building that Bruno Zevi found so distinctive and important appears in Itinerary 8, "In the Parks, on the Streets, and in the Homes of the Famous, If Not Rich."  It is on via
Giovanni Battista de Rossi.  When we met architect Piero Sartogo in 2008, he told us the structure had been placed on the historic structures registry and was in line for a facelift. 

On our first sighting of the building,  we recognized its distinctiveness but were not so fond of the exposed concrete, which we identified with a brutalist aesthetic that we disliked.  Today, we bow to modern Rome's outstanding architectural theorist, Bruno Zevi.

Bill

Lotta Studentesca, Blocco Studentesco: the young right wing tackles education

As you walk the streets of Rome--and if you "read" its walls--you'll find evidence of two similarly-sounding organizations: the Lotta Studentesca (literally Student Struggle) and Blocco Studentesco (Student Block).  Both are student organizations, and both are actively--perhaps sometimes too actively--involved in changing Italian schools, including secondary schools and universities. 

Posted outside a school on via Taranto

Although its name dates to the 1970s, the current Lotta Studentesca began as the youth arm of Forza Nuova, a militant, anti-immigrant, homophobic far-right political party founded in 1997.  The LS wants more investment in the public schools, opposes costly textbooks (costly, they say, because of corruption), is anti-drugs, and advocates more emphasis on school sports. 

Reprediamoci Tutto: We'll Take it all Back

The Blocco Studentesco emerged in 2006 from CasaPound, a neo-fascist organization named after the American poet Ezra Pound, who in the 1940s, while living in Italy, was an ardent supporter of the Mussolini regime.  It currently has affiliates in some 40 Italian cities, including Rome, Verona, Parma, and Palermo. 







The Rome affiliate has carried out occupations of several schools in Rome and, on October 29, 2008, occupied the tourist mecca Piazza Navona, where its supporters participated in a bloody clash with opponents on the left.  The clash was precipitated by the Gelmini Decree, named after Mariastella Gelmini, the

A Rome school occupied by Blocco Studentesco

Minister of Education, and passed by the Italian parliament.  The Gelmini Decree was composed of a series of proposed actions, most of which were opposed by the Blocco Studentesco.  The group was especially angry about cuts to the education budget (response: "we won't pay for your crisis") and a new course offering in "civic education" that was likely understood as an exercise in thought control. 

Despite the militant protests, the BS program seems less than revolutionary:  improved services, reduced bureaucracy, more student representation in decision-making, opposition to public money being spent on private schools.  A Roman friend offers a different perspective.  He describes both movements as "violent and dangerous," "anti-Semitic and homophobic."  "The difference [between them]," he adds, "is minimal and linked to personal opposition and dislike between their leaders." 

Bill

For more on "reading" Rome's walls, see our December 2011 post.

Opposition to government spending on private schools. 

Music to our ears in Trastevere: Ombre Rosse

Musicians in the main room; art exhibit on walls

As most RST followers know, we are fans of popular music in Rome, especially the Italian brand of singer-songwriter and jazz.  One easy place to take in music is Ombre Rosse, a bar/cafe'/music venue in Trastevere, right off the main piazza (Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere), in Piazza San Egidio (with the quarter's Rome museum across the way).

Ombre Rosse - which means Red Shadows, but perhaps more to the point is the Italian name of the iconic John Ford Western, Stagecoach - has music every Thursday evening. Check out the Web site (in Italian only, but look under "Concerti" and it will be obvious).  They also have regular art exhibits on the cafe' walls. 

We noticed the October concerts are all Italians.  Often the performers are foreign.  We heard an excellent Canadian singer-songwriter here one year.  And, the music can be non-Italian as well.  An homage to Robert Johnson by an all-Italian group was fascinating (and we sat next to some Swedish tourists who were enjoying it as much as we were).

The most we've eaten here is the buffet that goes with the drinks for aperitivo hour.  The most recent TripAdvisor reviews are negative, complaining about the service and the food.  These reviews vary greatly from past ones.  We've always had good service.  And, as noted, we don't go to a bar/café/music venue for the food.

Ombre Rosse's atmosphere is sweet, especially in contrast to most of heavy-drinking Trastevere.  You can sit outside/inside and catch the music and do people-watching at the same time.

And for a two-fer, first go to the museum, called simply The Museum of Rome in Trastevere. Operated by the city, it often has nice exhibits that go beyond the usual in Rome.  Check out the Web site.

We're also devotees of Ombre Rosse's outside patio, complete with people watching

Dianne

eBook Launch (and now in print too!): MODERN ROME: 4 GREAT WALKS FOR THE CURIOUS TRAVELER

Bill and Dianne are pleased to announce the publication of their eBook, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler (Curious Traveler Press).  It is available for download on Kindle (and for other devices using the Kindle app) at amazon.com (click on the cover at right). $1.99
UPDATE: Now available in print from all major booksellers, including amazon.com

We offer four new, alternative Rome walks, all outside the city’s tourist core, all easily accessible by Metro or tram, and all in neighborhoods where Romans live and work.  As the readers of our blog have put it, "Rome with the Romans." 



Entrance to Garbatella, early 1920s

“Garbatella—Garden City Suburb” is a guided tour through one of the world’s most engaging and mysterious planned communities, a 1920s creation featuring curving streets, enchanting stairways, interior courtyards, and some of the most unusual public housing ever built.

Fascist-era spectacle at the Square Coliseum

“EUR: Mid-Century Spectacle” features a dramatic locale, now a center of Rome’s business community, but planned and constructed in monumental style to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1922 Fascist March on Rome.

Zaha Hadid's MAXXI

On the opposite end of the city, a walk through Flaminio introduces Rome’s sensational 21st-century, Starchitect-designed cultural centers, and across the Tiber, the suggestive site of the 1960 Olympic Games, the Foro Italico, a virtual “Mussolini theme park” built by the Duce in the 1930s.

A medieval-style tower, in the heart of Villa Sciarra

A fourth, stairways walk begins in Trastevere’s back yard, winding up, down, and around Rome’s 8th hill, the Gianicolo, traversing a 17^th-century villa, a compelling 1941 monument to the Italian unification movement, and one of the smallest, and most charming temples in all of Italy.

Modern Rome is available now for Kindle at the Kindle Store at Amazon.  It will soon be available in several other formats, including iBooks (through iTunes), Nook (through Barnes and Noble), and through Smashwords.  You can also download the book onto an iPad or iPhone through Amazon’s Kindle Store, using a Kindle app on your device.  Modern Rome features more than 100 hyperlinks, 63 photos, and 4 detailed maps.   $1.99 in all formats. 

"Here lived...": commemorating Italian Jews who died in the Holocaust

in Pigneto

If you look down once in a while in Rome, you may find a small brass plaque beginning "Qui abitava"or "Here lived," with a name, date and other information in Italian.  Like the one above:

Here lived
Fernando
Nuccetelli,
born 1903
arrested for his politics
January 4, 1944
deported
Concentration Camp Mautausen
died April 23, 1944

Here lived Silvia Sermoneta, born 1897, arrested Oct. 10, 1943,
deported, Auschwitz, assassinated July 15, 1944, on via Salaria

Almost 100 of these "stolpersteine" (iin German) or "stumbling blocks" ("pietri d'inciampo" in Italian) are on the streets of Rome, and over 40,000 in 10 countries in Europe and Russia.  The project of German artist Gunter Demnig, they commemorate Jews, Roma, and others, like Nuccetelli, a political prisoner, who died in the Holocaust.

More than 1000 Jews were deported from Rome to the camps late in World War II, as Nuccetelli's plaque reveals. Of the 2000 Italian Jews deported, only 102 survived.



The 4-inch (10 cm) cube stolpersteine is laid flush with the sidewalk, usually in front of the last known residence of the victim.  In Rome, this often  means the stolpersteine replaces a sanpietrino, or cobblestone-like block of the sidewalk and is noticeable not so much for its shape, but the shiny brass. They were laid in Rome in 2010 and 2011, in many of the city's municipalities, including many in the city's old Jewish ghetto.



Relatives of one who escaped the round-up, on via Arenula

We stopped this year in front of two on via Arenula along largo di Torre Argentina, while walking on the street with friends visiting Rome for the first time from the United States. As we were trying to explain the stones, a relative of those who died came out of the building.  He had lost his aunts, uncles and all his cousins, he told us.

Scandalously, 3 of the stones were stolen in Rome in 2012.

Dianne

Here lived Laudadio di Nepi, born 1882, arrested Oct. 16, 1943,
deported, Auschwitz, died during transport; also on via Salaria,
at the same address as Silvia Sermoneta