Carlo Aymonino and the exhibition hall in the roman garden of the capitoline museums. From the context to the project

During his tenure as councilor (1981-1985), Carlo Aymonino based his political and design actions on three key ideas. First and foremost, he wanted to transform the city and close the gap between Rome and other European capitals by strategically exploiting the structural delay that had historically characterized Rome. Fiftheen years later, Aymonino’s project for the Campidoglio was the first meaningful attempt to insert contemporary architecture intoa broader process of revision and enhancement of the urban fabric in Rome’s old city center. The project was part of the rearrangement of the museum circuit of the Capitoline Museums; his design reflects a strategy of formal and spatial recomposition of the so-called “Grande Campidoglio”, a complex process that began in 1988 and ended in 2005. It envisaged the creation of a new exhibition area seamlessly linked to an enlarged, restored museum path (partly underground) connecting the three main architectural buildings facing the Michelangelesque square: Palazzo dei Conservatori, Palazzo Caffarelli and Palazzo Clementino. The project combines the temporal and dimensional aspect regarding the relationship between the roots of history and the horizon on which the features of the future are depicted. Placing the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in his Roman Garden marks the apex of Aymonino’s philosophy which he expresses in his hand-drawn images: the urban vision of an ideal city in which traces of history and new projects harmoniously coexist and complement each other.