Il progetto dello spazio pubblico nella città storica. Il concorso del 1967 per l’ampliamento della Camera dei Deputati

The competition of 1967 for the new offi ces of the Chamber of Deputies is an important episode in the Italian architecture of the postwar period, because it is a rare example of contemporary design in the heart of the city of Rome, both for the participation of the major Italian exponents, but also for the unusual ex aequo result which shows the failure of the competition and the heated dispute of those years about the topic of the city. The projects of the competition, which are collected in an interesting essay by Manfredo Tafuri, undoubtedly show the main attention to the architectural shape of the building and its interior functional program, but through the careful reading of the projects, it is interesting to see the centrality of urban design as a generator or, at least, as indispensable strategy for the insertion of the object in its context. Following the research project done during the phd program of DRACo school - Architecture and Construction in La Sapienza University, the paper aims to deepen the design of urban space before the architectural design which is present in the projects of the competition of 1967, the different methods and strategies of design, for example the urban platform by Passarelli, the honorary column by Polesello, the perspective views of Quaroni and Vaccaro. In this sense it is crucial to compare these projects and the design of Parliament Square by Ernesto Basile of 1902.