From nature to the city and back: the case of Clodio Square, Rome.

The topic is Piazzale Clodio, one of the unfinished edges of the city: on one side, it physically touches but does not integrate with the slopes of Monte Mario, whilst on the other side lies the built and consolidated city. The city as planned in 1909 stops at the edge of Circonvallazione Clodia, which it draws as its border; failing to advance due to the interruption from the messy front of Monte Mario.Today it looks like a slot of asphalt (an asphalt buttonhole) welcoming a confused flow of buses and cars: judges, lawyers and defendants cross it daily. It is a rather undefined space, a spit of indefinite land that glides downstream to meet up along the asphalt of Circonvallazione Clodia. Only several planted trees and huge advertising billboards conceal the unfinished nature of an empty square, which became a bus terminal, parking, junction and roundabout over time. In this special context a part of the urban fabric, confined between the Panoramic road, Via Teulada and Monte Mario, shows itself as ground parking and circus events, an undefined place full of potential where the city can reconnect to the landscape.