“Old Cities New Architecture”: Notes on the Modern Rome Sharing the Italian Modern Culture of Architecture of the Cities Eastward

The history of modern Rome (1870-1950) is the history of Rome Capital of Italy. It is deeply rooted in the history of Rome of the previous centuries and is permeated by the problem of national identity. It is a history in which the aim to modernize the country, to build its symbolic Capital city, to provide a home to the inner migrants from the North and the South of the country, was managed through demolitions, reconstructions, new architecture, new foundation cities, land reclamation and infrastructural improvements. The need to express representation of power involved talented architects and intellectuals as Margherita Sarfatti, a Venetian-born writer, art critic, patron whose personal and intellectual life had a significant impact on Modern Rome and on the artistic movement which sought to revive of academic classicism and neo-Reinassance called Novecento Italiano to which it was somehow opposite the position of razionalisti (Rationalists) “who were not only ‘modernists’ but for a time, the ‘young Turks’ of modern architecture”: for example Giuseppe Pagano, founder of Casabella and Giuseppe Terragni. During the twenties of the last century, before the classicist, levelling and authoritarian mediation of Marcello Piacentini (1881-1960) took the upper hand, the will to meet architecture and archaeology was among the strategies to implement the representation of power and deliver the Fascist propaganda through the shape of the Capital city. “First, archaeology, in the form of ancient Roman house plans, is presented as evidence of civilization. […] One of the premises at work here is the equation, “civilization=archaeology”; the second premise is “civilization=architecture”. Recognizably Roman house floor plans, rectilinear and symmetrical, with atria (the conventional inner courtyards encountered upon entering from the street), link Caesar to Mussolini, and the Roman Empire to the Fascist Empire.” (Mia Fuller, 2007) Then, the paper introduces Gustavo Giovannoni (1873-1947), an engineer, the other leading figure with Piacentini of the group identified in Rome as Accademici (straightforward historicist), acting promoter and founder of the architecture schools in Italy on 1919 – often collaborating with Piacentini in several architectural and urban projects as the Variant of the Master Plan of Rome of 1909 – elaborated and built in Rome between 1907 and 1911 Quartiere del Rinascimento which can be considered a methodological demonstrative example of urban conservation that Giovannoni called ambientismo (adaptive contextualism or harmonizing the new architecture with the pre-existing built environment). The paper considers the case of the demolition of Spina di Borgo replaced by Via della Conciliazione, the demolition of Quartiere Ale ssandrino to build Via dei Fori Imperiali (former Via dell’Impero) cutting and separating the Roman Fora and the Imperial Fora; the demolition of the Auditorium Correa S. Cecilia to make the tomb of August (Augusteo) re-emerge as a new urban scenery; the partial destruction of Scalinata di Ripetta, a masterpiece of the Baroque architecture, designed by Alessandro Specchi, the author of the Spanish Steps in order to realize the embankments of Lungotevere (Tiber Banks); the demolition of Villa Montalto a sumptuous Renaissance villa built on the site of the Termini Station. Moreover, the paper mentions influence of the ancient Ostia Antica housing constructions on the residential architecture built in Rome between the two world wars by architects as Pietro Aschieri, Innocenzo Sabbatini and Mario De Renzi. In addition, this contribute demonstrates the interest of international and multidisciplinary scholars (architects, archaeologist, anthropologiest) on the issue of Modern Rome as it involves issue as identity, representation of power, the relationship with tradition and modernity in the discussion: Spiro Kostof, The Third Rome, 1970-1950 (1971), University Art Museum, Mia Fuller, Moderns Abroad: Architecture, Cities and Italian Imperialism (2007), Vanna Fraticelli, Renato Nicolini and Gianni Accasto, L' architettura di Roma capitale, 1870-1970 (1969), Vanna Fraticelli, Roma 1914-1929. La città e gli architetti tra la guerra e il fascism (1982), Valentine Kockel, Il palazzo per tutti, “Nuernberger Blaetter zur Archaeologie” (1995) Furthermore, this paper proposes reflections on architecture as tool of cultural transferring and mediation – for the construction of national identity and a modern identity of a nation – highlighting analogies and correspondences between Chinese and Italian architectural culture building on the idea of modernity. There are, indeed, reported some reflections proposed by scholars of different backgrounds on the idea of architecture and modernity: the British historian James Ackerman used to affirm: “A work of architecture is a social artifact arising from a great number of transactions in which conflicts are resolved”. Either the client is public or private (either a prince or a politician) the representation of power or of the social status through the construction of a modern urban environment and the construction of national infrastructures can be easily distinguished in all civilization and countries. Additionally, a significant coincidence is highlighted in the text: Liang Sicheng was surveying the historic building of China in the countryside during the same age (mid 30s/40s) of the photographic survey conducted by Giuseppe Pagano –founder of Casabella – in the Italian countryside to be concluded by the publication of a book Architettura Rurale Italiana and the Exhibition of Rural Architecture (with Guarniero Daniel), Exhibition of Building Materials (with Guido Frette), 6th Milan Triennale (1936). “Modernity is a catch of conscience”, affirms Philippe Daverio, a Milanese-Alsatian art history critic and art dealer during a lesson at Politecnico di Milano. Comparatively, it is interesting to read another vision of the idea of modernity as it is presented by a Roman scholar and architect, Lucio Barbera, especially to highlight the different approaches to the idea of History in the Eastern and Western world: in the first case history is intended as cyclical continuity process in the second one history has been considered as subdivided in separated phases (Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, etc…): “The modern, therefore, to our western eyes, is that which gives a new start to history and lets it unfold continually before our gaze; it con¬stantly tries to give history a goal, and thus establishes historical thought as the basis for the search for truth, and as the basis of scientific thought, by introducing new historical methods compared to those of the ancients, and by benefiting its very opponents, as it did with the Roman Church, which imposed its own new principles and began teaching the philological, and thus scientific, study of the scriptures, which forced it dramatically into a debate on its own dogmas..” (Lucio Barbera, 2009) As to the Chinese modern architecture history and historiographical approach it is interesting to give evidence to the fact that only in the last ten years new conferences and publication were organized on the figure of Marcello Piacentini and Gustavo Giovannoni, to update their historiographical profile and explore more objectively their legacy, given also the actual deeply transformed context. Most probably this work is already on going as it is evident in the book Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-arts with contributes by Zhang Jie, Chang Yung Ho, Xing Ruan open to consider with an updated view the work of the Chinese masters (Liang Sicheng, Yang Tingbao, Tong Jun) of the early Twentieth century expanding the teleological/hegelian approach to history that Liang Sicheng, (via Liang Qichao) proposed. The paper provides at glance some projects of Roman academics considering themselves chinophili, as an operative approach to China started with a design workshop lead by prof. Lucio Barbera at Tsinghua University of Beijgin in 2005 on the area known as “the Three Gardens and Five Hills”, in the north west of Beijing, between the Tsinghua Campus and the Fragrant Hills. The research question was how to control the development areas. The final results were presented at the presence of prof. Wu Liangyong. This experience opened the opportunity to establish and academic friendship between prof. Lucio Barbera and prof. Wu Liangyong that brought to the translation and publication in Italian and in English of the book A General Theories of Architecture – with help of remarkable prof. Wu’s pupils Liu Jian and Ying Jin and the guide of experienced translators – and to further academic and research exchanges.