Valle Giulia, the Valley of the Academies. From the International Exhibition of 1911 to the New Cultural and Academic Complex

The setting of the Valle Giulia still preserves some of the peculiarities of urban villas amid green space, a typology reminiscent of the country residences described by Pliny the Elder. The historical transformations that formed the relationship between architecture and nature and led to the present-day settlement pattern have been investigated in a number of studies. In the first part, the author analize the Valle Giulia as an ancient place of knowledge and natural scenery that still retains the fascination of a sports and residential complex through the arrangement of historical villas dating from between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries (Villa Giulia, Villa Borghese, Villa Strohl-Fern, Villa Poniatowski, Villa Balestra and Villa della Casina Vagnuzzi). Its modern traits were delineated on the occasion of the International Exhibition of 1911 with the construction of the pavilions of foreign countries for culture and art on both sides of the Viale delle Belle Arti. The definitive structure of this valley of culture and academies emerged clearly in 1949, when several academies were constructed on hilly slopes on the sides of the Villa Giulia, Villa Borghese and Villa Strohl-Fern: those of Romania (1931–3), Belgium (1937–9), the Netherlands (1931–3) and Sweden (1938–40). The 1960s witnessed the arrival of the academies of Denmark (1962–5) and Egypt on the Via Omero. On the opposite side were the Austrian Cultural Forum (1937–8), the Japanese Cultural Institute in Rome (1960), the Faculty of Architecture (1930–32), the British School at Rome (1911–3) and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. The second part of the chapter, “The Integral Planning of Italian Modernity between Tradition and Innovation”, is dedicated to the analysis of the particular economic and political situation of Italy and Rome in the 1930s, and its reflections on the architectural culture of the period. The thesis supported, which also concerns the Academia Belgica, is that of the global design of rationalist architecture, where the building is conceived, designed and built as a whole and in every detail.