Archinect - News

Rome's Colosseum is worth a cool $79 billion, according to Deloitte

2022-07-28T12:23:00-04:00

The real value of one of the world’s most well-recognized historic sites is now officially set after the global financial consultancy Deloitte published their assessment of Rome’s ancient Colosseum on Monday.

According to Deloitte, the nearly 2,000-year-old Flavian amphitheater is worth exactly $79 billion. Its estimate is derived principally from responses to a survey that begged Italians a variety of questions pertaining to the perception of the Colosseum, of which the overwhelming majority — $75 billion — was ascribed to “social value.”

Romans in the survey placed an outsize value ($91 over $57) compared to their countrymen when asked about the monetary amount they would contribute per year to ensure the preservation of the first-century relic. Around 87% said it was the most important monument in Italy. Some 70% think the entire world should be tasked with financing its ongoing upkeep, wh...

Dream the Combine, MOS Architects, Present Practice, and Alexa Vaughn among winners of the American Academy's 2022–23 Rome Prize

2022-04-25T20:14:00-04:00

The American Academy in Rome (AAR) has awarded the 2022–23 Rome Prize and Italian Fellowships to thirty-eight American and four Italian artists and scholars. An award presented across eleven disciplines ranging from architecture, landscape architecture, visual arts, literature, and design, this year's program gift offers an opportunity to foster "time and space to think and work."

Established in 1894, the AAR is the oldest overseas center for research and independent studies within the arts and humanities. Mark Robbins, AAR President and CEO: "This year's Rome Prize winners and Italian Fellows represent the diversity of the United States, and their projects build on the Academy's commitment to the global impact of the arts and humanities."

Below are the 2022–23 Rome Prize winners in the categories of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

ARCHITECTURE

Rome Prize in Architecture

Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers (Vanishing Points: Overwriting Spatial Imaginaries of Rome), Founding...

Grande ambitions: Rome’s MAXXI Museum announces a major expansion project

2022-02-14T17:01:00-05:00

One of the most successful recent additions to the European cultural scene is about to grow after the MAXXI Museum revealed a call for submissions to an international competition for a new green corridor and multi-purpose building project named MAXXI Grande.

The ever-popular Roman institution announced on Friday its plans to build a new building that will be home to a research and development center called MAXXI Hub which will combine with an outdoor exhibition area named MAXXI Green to provide improved access, storage, and conservation facilities for its drastically evolved collection.

Site plan of the proposed expansion. Image courtesy MAXXI Museum

Backed by private funding and an investment from the state’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), the expansion will include a sustainable revamp of the existing structure into a key energy-efficient cog in the overall program’s circular economy. The MAXXI has nearly doubled in size in its decade-plus of existence, giving furt...

Italy blocks McDonald's from building drive-through at Rome's ancient Baths of Caracalla

2022-01-04T13:40:00-05:00

Italy’s highest administrative court has definitively barred McDonald’s from building a 10,000 sq. m outlet in the shadow of the third-century Baths of Caracalla, one of Rome’s most celebrated ancient sites. Published on 28 December, the council of state’s ruling upheld the verdict of a lower court preventing the fast food chain from using a tract of land adjacent to the baths to open a drive-through restaurant and parking area.

The court also stated that government authorities are entitled to halt future development projects in or around other important heritage sites. As reported by The Art Newspaper, the Lazio region and the Italian culture ministry can now suspend works in not only existing heritage sites but in locations that authorities “intend to protect”, which have yet to be declared of cultural or landscape interest.

McDonald’s had already started building the drive-through after being approved by the ministry of culture. However, the project was stopped in 2019 following a media outcry and the ministry of culture’s reversal of its position. McDonald’s plans to open 200 new restaurants in Italy by 2025.

Domus Aurea reopens with an improved ramp and entryway from an Italian maestro

2021-06-30T18:03:00-04:00

The Domus Aurea in Rome is open once again with a new feature following a 14-month hiatus after the coronavirus pandemic forced the 2,000-year-old palace’s shutdown.

Stefano Boeri Architetti helped welcome back the public with an improved ramp and new entryway featuring an exhibition titled “Raphael and the Domus Aurea: The Invention of the Grotesques.” The event will coincide with a show at the Scuderie del Quirinale observing the 500th anniversary of the death of the painter and architect.

Photo: Lorenzo Masotto

Originally the replacement home of 1st-century ruler, Emperor Nero, the Domus came back into prominence during the High Renaissance in large part due to its display of ancient grottos filled with grotesques. The Roman paintings were noteworthy enough to attract visits from influential figures throughout Europe including luminaries like Michelangelo and the Marquis de Sade.

Now, with help from Boeri, the curious can once again be transported through the maze of frescoed gall...

The Colosseum in Rome opens its ancient Hypogeum to the public for the first time

2021-06-30T14:59:00-04:00

A newly restored Hypogeum has been unveiled in Rome over the weekend, opening the catacombs of the famed Colosseum to the public for the first time in its 2,000-year history.

The Italian Ministry of Culture has announced that the little-seen section is finally open thanks to a decades-long restoration project funded in part by a $29.8 million gift from fashion brand Tod’s.

Planned on a whim at the end of the first century AD, the Colosseum was the last great project under Emperor Vespasian and incorporated a labyrinth-like, wood-covered underground area (added under Emperor Domitian) used as a multi-purpose space by the building's grounds crew and as barracks and staging area for gladiators. Just like the ancient fighters, who were meant to be hidden as they entered the arena floor through a series of tunnels, visitors are now free to explore.

The Colosseum’s final Venatio came in ...

Foster + Partners converts nineteenth-century palazzo into new Apple store in Rome

2021-06-01T18:18:00-04:00

Foster + Partners and Apple have collaborated to create a new Apple store that brings a nineteenth-century site back to life in Rome. Situated on Via del Corso, one of the most vibrant streets in the city, Apple Via Del Corso restores the Palazzo Marignoli, uncovering historic features and opening up a central courtyard.

The design of the store reveals the building’s compelling and multi-layered history by unveiling painted ceilings and frescoes from the 1890s juxtaposed with modern graffiti artworks from the 1950s.

Ettore Ballerini's Dusk was restored and integrated into the new store.

Stefan Behling, Head of Studio at Foster + Partners, said: “The joy of the project was to peel back and rediscover the layers of history throughout the building and revealing its eclectic past, which ranges from the historic painted ceilings and the frescoes by Fabio Cipolla, both from the 1890s, to the more recent graffiti artworks by Afro Basaldella. Palazzo Marignoli has seen so much throughout i...

Take a look at the newly unveiled high-tech floor for the Colosseum arena in Rome

2021-05-03T17:03:00-04:00

The floor of Rome’s Colosseum, where gladiators once fought against each other and wild animals, is set to be restored to its former glory. Milan Ingegneria, a structural engineering and architecture firm, has won an €18.5m (£16m) bid to build and install a retractable arena floor that will allow visitors “to see the majesty of the monument” from its centre, culture minister Dario Franceschini said on Sunday.

Plans for the arena floor restoration of the Roman Colosseum (completed in AD80 under Emperor Titus) first appeared on Archinect in January.

Concept for the new Colosseum arena floor. Video via MiC_Italia on YouTube.

Milan Ingegneria's concept of a retractable arena floor allows the structure to be flexible and easily removed again should the need arise. If construction goes according to plan, the new attraction will open in 2023.

A €10 million project will be offered to the designer who can recreate the original Colosseum arena floor in Rome

2021-01-12T12:39:00-05:00

The Italian culture ministry is offering the €10 million project to the designer who can turn the clock back 2,000 years to when 35,000 Romans bayed for blood in the ancient stadium.

According to The Times, "Italy is looking for a brilliant engineer to reinstall the Colosseum arena floor, complete with trapdoors and the hidden lifts that allowed wild animals to leap out and menace gladiators."

Previously on Archinect: Mayor-less Rome's logistical battle to invest in its past and present

"We want to give an idea of how it was and we are seeking proposals from around the world," said Alfonsina Russo, director of the Colosseum, as reported by The Times.

Major Aldo Rossi retrospective to open at MAXXI

2020-11-30T14:25:00-05:00

The work of architect and designer Aldo Rossi, the first Italian winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1990, will be the star of the new major exhibition Aldo Rossi. The architect and the cities opening on March 10 at MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.

The retrospective features a selection of more than 800 drawings, sketches, models, letters, notes, photographs, and documents produced during Rossi's career that was cut short when he died following a car accident in 1997 at the age of 66.

Aldo Rossi: Architettura con santo. Image courtesy of MAXXI.

"Together with other architects of his generation, Rossi was an interpreter of the fundamental necessity of cultural reconstruction, taking place during the thrust of post-war responsibilities and owing to his extraordinary ability to 'gather' and attract the best of the international culture of his time," explains the museum's event description.

"Taking place more than 20 years after his death and since the last major mo...

LEGO to release 9,035-piece set of the Colosseum in Rome

2020-11-11T13:50:00-05:00

LEGO® presents the brick reproduction of one of the most fascinating monuments in the world. This is the largest LEGO product ever made, with great attention to detail to make it faithful to the original and to enhance its timeless beauty.

According to The Brick Fan, the LEGO Colosseum (10276) would be LEGO's largest set, consisting of 9,035 pieces. LEGO Italy has suggested that the new set could be announced on November 13th.

Edoardo Tresoldi's 2018 Coachella installation arrives in Rome

2020-10-12T10:53:00-04:00

Etherea, the installation created by Edoardo Tresoldi for the 2018 Coachella festival, has arrived in Rome for Back to Nature, an exhibition project curated by Constantino d'Orazio.

The work is made from three translucent sculptures reminiscent of Neoclassical and Baroque architecture. Contemplative in nature, Etherea focuses on the phenomenological aspects of architecture. The use of transparent wire mesh radiates a sense of mirage and the celestial.

Rome aims to protect national monuments and historic landmarks with strict tourist rules

2019-06-12T13:58:00-04:00

Authorities in the Italian capital have now enforced a slew of rules, updated from legislation drafted in 1946, as they seek to clamp down on uncouth behavior that has long been a source of frustration.

With a slew of visitors and tourists filling the streets of historic cities across the globe, it is no wonder authorities in the Italian capital are enforcing measures to help preserve Rome's cityscape. From "messy eating" and foot bathing near the Trevi Fountain to preserving historic staircases, these rules are set to reduce the level of transgressions happening within the city. "Bans on wheeled suitcases and buggies being dragged down historic staircases, walking around bare-chested, and pub crawls. The authorities are also taking aim at 'nuisance drunks' or people who sing on public transport, as well as those who wrap their mouths around the nozzles of the city's drinking fountains."

Visitor dipping head into Trevi Fountain. Image © Vincenzo Pinto/AFP

One specific measure with a permanent ban are for individuals dressing up as modern-day centurions. According to the Guardian, "men who dress up in tunics and leather breastplates, wielding plastic swords – and make money by posin...

Italy shuts down Steve Bannon's "gladiator school for cultural warriors"

2019-06-03T19:39:00-04:00

Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot.

What was once the potential site for a training academy for the far-right, the Italian state evicts the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) due to reports of fraud. According to a recent report from The Economist, institute director Benjamin Harnwell was shocked by the news, while the former aide to US President Trump stated the letter was "totally legitimate" and "dust kicked up by the left."

The plans for transforming a medieval monastery near Rome into the center for these "cultural warriors" of the far-right included the prospect that students "would learn philosophy, theology, history, and economics, and receive political training from the former Trump aide himself."

Unhappy with the recent news of losing the monastery, DHI plans to fight the decision in court. “The DHI will contest this illegitimate maneuver with every resource at its disposal no matter how many years it takes. And we will win and in the meantime, we relish the opportunity to ...

When in Rome

2018-07-10T22:46:00-04:00

"Along with their monumental role in Rome's urban fabric, the architectural status of fountains has long been uncertain. It can be hard to determine when they ceased to be viewed as public water utilities, and came to be regarded as purely artistic objects."

In the same week in 2016, a group of tourists were denounced as trespassers for splashing around in one of Rome's historic fountains, while Fendi was praised for its tribute to Italy's artistic legacy by staging a fashion show across another. Anatole Tchikine is prompted by these contrasting reactions to examine the complicated relationship between architecture, water, and the body in the city — from early modern laundresses to La Dolce Vita.

Labics redevelops former bus depot into “City of Sun” in Rome

2018-02-06T19:40:00-05:00

After winning the Municipality of Rome's invite-only competition in 2007, architects Maria Claudia Clemente and Francesco Isidori of Labics revitalized a former bus depot at the edge of town into a mixed-use complex called the Città del Sole, or “City of Sun”. Working with local public transit authority ATAC, the Municipality of Rome sought design proposals that would redevelop a number of transit depots in the city. Labics completed City of Sun in 2016.

Photo: Marco Cappelletti.

In designing the 17,300 sq.m. project, Labics wanted to create a porous urban center for the local community that would also enhance the neighborhood's identity.

Photo: Marco Cappelletti.

The multi-level complex has commercial spaces and a public library at ground level, offices on the first floor, and then public spaces on the next level.

Three buildings are suspended above the public spaces. One of the buildings provides additional office space, while the ot...

Humanities go digital with archive of historic Rome

2017-07-26T19:42:00-04:00

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from University of Oregon, Stanford and Dartmouth have co-developed a new digital archive. The collection contains nearly 4,000 drawings, prints, paintings and photographs of historic Rome from the 16th to 20th centuries that are now available online to the public. The Rodolfo Lanciani Digital Archive brings together pieces collected by Lanciani, a renowned Roman archaeologist, and reflect Rome’s transformation over the centuries. The physical collection is housed in the Palazzo Venezia.

UO architecture Professor James Tice, principal investigator for the Rodolfo Lanciani Digital Archive, notes the project makes accessible “a precious archival collection and demonstrates how similar materials can be made available to scholars, students and the general public through the digital humanities.”

Porto di Ripetta

Erik Steiner, co-director of the Center for Textual and Spatial Studies (CESTA) at Stanford, observes, “this is part of our long-term amb...

The mystery of how Roman concrete has withstood the sea for millennia is finally solved

2017-07-06T13:09:00-04:00

Modern, steel-embedded concrete seawalls tend to need repair after a few decades of erosion from the endless procession of waves, but the Roman pier at Portus Cosanus in Orbetello, Italy has remained solid for almost two thousand years. Scientists have finally figured out the missing ingredient of this material's longevity, and it turns out to be mineral growth after the concrete has set.

Ancient Roman Seawall at Portus Cosanus in Orbetello. Image: Wikimapia

This concept of concrete that grows after it has been set is something that others have been experimenting with recently, but The Telegraph breaks this new discovery down thusly:

Roman engineers made concrete by mixing volcanic ash with lime and seawater to make a mortar, and then added chunks of volcanic rock. The combination of ash, water, and lime produces what is called a pozzolanic reaction, named after the city of Pozzuoli in the Bay of Naples, triggering the formation of crystals in the gaps of the mixture as it sets.

Th...

I Melt With You: "Indoor City" installation explores dissolving spatial boundaries in an era of climate change

2017-03-14T17:44:00-04:00

With layered narration from writers and the input of a climate scientist, the 40-foot long table installation known as "Indoor City" designed by Founder Rome Prize Fellows Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem (MODU) with Jonathan Berger, Hussein Fancy, Christoph Meinrenken, Jack Livings and Matthew Null, tackles the dire conceptual heft of designing for massive systemic weather change.

By placing carbon ice on the installation, the idea is to track how divisions between urban spaces and the environment release more carbon dioxide into the air, thereby creating more stress on the environment (and making the urban spaces quite unpleasant to live in as a result). The project advocates for a more integrated design concept while allowing visitors to enjoy what amounts to a trippy installation. Here's a video of the installation, which is part of the 2017 Cinque Mostre show and will be viewable in person at the American Academy in Rome until April 4th:

“The Olympics are a dream that turn into a nightmare." – Rome's mayor pulls 2024 Olympic bid

2016-09-22T12:45:00-04:00

Virginia Raggi, who was elected in June and has faced a tumultuous start to her tenure, said in a highly anticipated press conference that it would be irresponsible to move forward with the bid, given the debts that it would accrue and the burdens it would place on Roman taxpayers. [...] The 38-year-old lawyer said the city was still paying debts it had accrued for the Games in 1960, and would not stand for more “cathedrals in the desert” – abandoned stadiums – that the city could ill afford.

Take the Olympics, please!

A dinosaur, a flying saucer, a rock garden: Parasite 2.0's installation for YAP MAXXI

2016-06-28T14:14:00-04:00

Most Americans know MoMA’s Young Architect’s Program (YAP) through its annual summer festival in the MoMA PS1 courtyard in Long Island City, but they also have an impressive international program. For the Roman edition of the program, this year’s winner, studio Parasite 2.0, installed a giant green dinosaur, a neon flying saucer, and other peculiar objects in the sunlit courtyard of the Zaha Hadid-designed MAXXI Museum.

Entitled MAXXI Temporary School: the museum is a school. A school is a battleground, the installation is composed of three sets made of wood, recycled rubber and metal. One of the sets has two walls rising from a star-shaped podium accessible by a tunnel. Another comprises a rock garden, a rainbow, and the flying saucer. In the third, a dinosaur spout water alongside images of the planet Saturn and Easter Island moan.

“Fantastical settings, references from diverse cultures, fragments of nature and pop-up details providing backdrops for visitors’ thousand-like selfies: ...

The architectural eclecticism of Mussolini's Italy

2016-06-01T13:18:00-04:00

...Mussolini, at least for his first decade in power, wasn’t quite as interested in architecture as his fellow dictators. While enthusiastically censoring film-makers, writers, academics and journalists, he let architects do as they please [...] The resulting architectural output, between Mussolini’s rise to power in 1922 and the late 1930s, when he began to exert more control, embodies an accidentally healthy pluralism.

"While Hitler rejoiced in the traditional völkisch kitsch of his imaginary master race, and Stalin revelled in over-iced baroque confections, Mussolini sat back and let historicist revivalism compete with the crisp forms of forward-looking modernism."

For more on the architecture of fascism, check out these links:

Cash-strapped Rome issues SOS to wealthy citizens for funds to restore its historic sites

2016-05-25T12:14:00-04:00

Rome has issued a €500m (£380m) SOS to companies, wealthy philanthropists and its own citizens to help restore many of the Italian capital’s historic sites and prevent others from falling into ruin. The Roman Forum, the Circus Maximus and the walls, aqueducts and sewerage system of what was once the most powerful city on Earth have all been earmarked as needing help ranging from a relatively minor clean up to full-blown structural works.

"Saddled with debts of some €12bn, Rome cannot afford to do it on its own."

Or: in search of noblesse oblige during the age of austerity politics.

Of course, Rome isn't the only European city struggling under the weight of debt. Check out these related articles:

Public housing, Italian-style: the corrupt mismanagement of Rome's housing stock

2016-04-29T15:07:00-04:00

Back in 2004, Elio Ciampanella was evicted from his apartment of three decades...So he applied for an apartment in Rome’s public housing. And he waited. More than a decade passed. Then, in February, [Ciampanella] unexpectedly had his choice of several apartments. His tale might be considered one of patience rewarded, but there was a twist: It turned out Rome’s municipal government never really had a shortage of properties.

"Instead, the government actually owned so many thousands of apartments and buildings that no one was quite certain how many there were, who lived in them or where they were. That was, until staff members for Rome’s new interim administrator, Francesco Paolo Tronca, discovered nine boxes containing roughly 1,200 case files left languishing by past mayors.

What quickly became clear was that most of the apartments had been rented for years — in some cases, decades — for as little as 10 euros per month."

According to the article, while some of these insane deals were for charities and other nonprofit organization, most of them were the by-product of Italy's notoriously corrupt political system.

The discovery has, unsurprisingly, become a scandal in Italy after details emerged like the story of one man who was earning €700,000 a month but living in public housing.

Now we just have to find out where the cheap housing is hidden in these cities:

Mayor-less Rome's logistical battle to invest in its past and present

2015-12-21T17:43:00-05:00

While some residents may be more concerned about their overflowing rubbish bins than maintaining ancient monuments, for many the survival of modern Rome will depend on the preservation of the past.

As Rome moves forward without a mayor, the city is taking on the restoration of both the Colosseum and the Porta Maggiore basilica while updating the modern city.

More about Rome on Archinect:

Was Rome really a "City of Marble"?

A breakneck tour of contemporary architecture in Rome

Contemporary Art in an 8th-Century Roman Church

2015-03-20T15:39:00-04:00

Next month, New York-based gallerist Gavin Brown will open a Rome gallery in an unexpected location: an 8th-century church named Sant’Andrea de Scaphis at Via dei Vascellari 69 in the Trastevere neighborhood... “It’s not that I was looking to open a place in Europe. I was looking to open this place in this building,” [said Brown] “I think a lot of people who run the kind of business I run have this real-estate problem...If you see empty buildings, you imagine what could be done there.”

Was Rome really a "City of Marble"?

2015-03-09T16:38:00-04:00

Architectural historian Diane Favro of [UCLA], has employed advanced modeling software to reconstruct the city of Rome in its entirety over the period of the rule of Augustus Caesar, from 44 B.C. to A.D. 14. According to legend, Augustus boasted, “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble”... She found that only a small proportion of the buildings in Augustan Rome were converted from brick to marble, and that they would have been difficult to see from ground level.

Favro explains that while much of Rome was left untouched by Augustus' urban project, the traffic caused by bringing the large quantities of Carrera marble through the city likely created the illusion "that Rome had been transformed into marble."

A breakneck tour of contemporary architecture in Rome

2015-02-22T20:58:00-05:00

It looks foreboding in pictures, but in reality it’s a lovely, tree-lined complex set at the street level with a string of cafes and shops.

Sam Lubell traveled to Rome with the proverbial grandparent(s), for some architectural tourism. They visited a church, museums and stadiums, and largely praised the "striking new buildings".

Second life for fascist architecture: Will Mussolini's Square Colosseum become a Palazzo for Fendi?

2015-02-17T14:14:00-05:00

A cash shortage in Rome could see the city’s fascist-era Square Colosseum sold to the fashion house Fendi, despite calls in the Italian capital to keep the building in state hands. More than 70 years after the Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro was built under the orders of Benito Mussolini it could soon be reinvented as a home for luxury goods.

Don't forget to register for YAC's Rome Community Ring competition

2014-12-22T18:14:00-05:00

Late registration began today for Young Architects Competitions' Rome Community Ring. If you want a chance to win, make sure to register by January 19, 2015 and submit your entries by January 26, 2015.

Students and professionals are encouraged to share their ideas on how to revive one of Rome's historical treasures, the 19th-century Forte Portuense, into a new cultural space for public recreation. Proposed designs must also include room for potential urban development. Built between 1877 to late 1881, Forte Portuense is one of several military fortresses and has remained preserved since military authorities abandoned the site in 1967.

Winners and cash prizes totaling €15,000 will be awarded when the competition ends in March 2015. An awards ceremony and exhibition will follow.

For more important competition details, click here.

Previous YAC competitions:

Wine Culture Centre

Post-Quake Visions