Flaminio

Walking between “Little London” and the Maxxi collections

“Starting from the 90s of the twentieth century, the neighborhood is at the center of one of the most successful urban transformation in the city.”

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History

The first bend of the Tiber north of the historic center encloses this neighborhood which began its development in the early twentieth century. Crossed by the Via Flaminia, from which it takes its name, this area remained unbuilt for a long time due to the seasonal flooding of the river. The first projects date back to the Napoleonic era (1809-1814) when the French prefect Camille de Tournon, wanting to adapt the city to the standards of the major European cities, planned a huge park covering the whole area. The project was never implemented due to the limited duration of the French prefecture in Rome. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first industrial plants began to rise, followed briefly by the first residential buildings. The turning point was the International Exhibition of 1911, organized to celebrate the first fifty years since the unification of Italy. The building activity was consolidated until the post-war period, when the area was chosen to host the Olympic village and some sports facilities for the 1960 Olympic Games. In more recent periods, starting from the 90s of the twentieth century, the neighborhood is at the center of one of the most successful urban redevelopments in the city. The new Auditorium (2002), the Maxxi – National Museum of the Arts of the 21st century (2010) and the Ponte della Musica (2011) were inaugurated to confirm the cultural vocation of this neighborhood.

Itinerary

The itinerary to discover the Flaminio starts from the ANKARA stop of the Tramway line 2 Mancini (Mancini dir.), easily accessible from the FLAMINIO line A metro station.

Get off the tramway, cross the avenue and arrive in 287, via Flaminia. Open the pedestrian gate and enter this small private road. Suddenly you will feel welcomed in an intimate atmosphere, very far from the noise of the rattling of trams. This set of terraced houses was designed by the arch. Quadrio Pirani in 1909 in implementation of the new regulatory plan commissioned by the Anglo-Italian mayor Ernesto Nathan who inaugurated a new season of huge projects to modernize the city. The external appearance of the residences is very reminiscent of English Victorian houses with a small staircase on façade and a small front garden. This street, known as “English Road” or “Little London”, with its reserved and elegant identity has become in recent years one of the prized places in the neighborhood.At the end of the street, exit the pedestrian gate and you will find yourself on viale del Vignola.

Exit on Viale del Vignola, cross the avenue, head towards Via Donatello and enter number 50. You will have just crossed the threshold of Villa Riccio, which takes its name from the Minister of Economy and Railways who in 1919 promoted its construction on a project of the eng. E. Negri. It is a building cooperative that created one of the best examples of “gated community” in early twentieth century Rome. Villa Riccio is composed of taller and more intense buildings on the perimeter and of buildings surrounded by greenery in the central area. The target of this real estate development was the growing white collar middle class which required increasingly modern housing standards. The impression one gets when walking through the internal avenues is of great tranquility and a very high quality of life, far from the frenzy of the large avenues in the neighborhood. In the years of building speculation, this complex risked to be demolished, as happened in other parts of the neighborhood.Continue to cross the area and exit the pedestrian gate on Via R. Stern.

Cross Via R. Stern and take Via G. Muziano. Suddenly you will find yourself in a small square that recalls the corners of some squares in the historic center. This effect was deliberately sought by the designer, arch. A. Limongelli, commissioned in 1926 to build a public housing complex that was not only a set of buildings but an urban space, in which the buildings are the theatrical backdrop of a place with a strong identity. Unlike Villa Riccio, closed to the outside, this intervention opens up to the visitor and encourages him to travel through space. The architect uses the forms of the Roman Baroque, with a series of allusions to stylistic elements and images of Bernini’s memory, such as the two travertine fountains with dolphin sculptures. The buildings, which bear on the facades of Latin mottoes, are part of the so-called talking facades of Rome. Continuing towards Piazza Melozzo da Forlì we leave this delightful square behind us and continue our itinerary.

Turn left onto Viale del Vignola and go up to Piazza Gentile da Fabriano. This tree-lined square on the Lungotevere is the fulcrum from which the trident of streets designed by the 1909 Town Plan unfolds. The three arteries, Viale del Vignola / Via Guido Reni / Viale del Pinturicchio, draw the urban framework of the neighborhood and converge where the Town Plan included a bridge on the river to connect with the Delle Vittorie district.The bridge was built only in 2011, when the municipal administration with an international competition selected the project of the British designer Buro Happold. The cable-stayed bridge exceeds 200 meters between the two sides with two mighty steel arches inclined to the deck. The bridge was designed for the passage of pedestrians and a tramway that should connect the Auditorium and Maxxi along Via Guido Reni and then connect to the Delle Vittorie district through the bridge. The whiteness of the arches stands out against the wooded slopes of Monte Mario with the outline of the Astronomical Observatory.

Turning your back on the Ponte della Musica, take Via Guido Reni. Starting to follow it, discover the life of the neighborhood, made up of small shops, the local market but above all large barracks. This, together with the cultural aspect, was for a long time the other identity of Flaminio. In the 90s of the twentieth century the large blocks occupied by the barracks began to be dismantled; the area of ​​the Montello barracks was chosen to host a new museum of contemporary art and architecture that was also a laboratory for emerging artists. The Ministry of Cultural Heritage launched an international design competition which was won by the Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. The winning project summarizes all the features of the competition: versatility of spaces, iconicity and, last but not least, a relationship with the urban context.Enter the pedestrian square that runs alongside the museum. Built entirely in reinforced concrete, it is “like a Guggenheim unrolled in paths of continuous space” as the jury of the World Architecture Festival defined it in 2010, on the occasion of the prize for best building of the year. The perfectly smooth external appearance was possible thanks to the development of a self-compacting concrete capable of modeling the entire building like a sculpture. The long exhibition route starts from the full height atrium and ends at the highest point, where a projecting volume overlooks the city with a large glass wall. The museum is always worth a visit, both for permanent collections and for temporary exhibitions, take a look at the programming!

Exit the pedestrian square and continue to the left along Via Guido Reni. In the immediate vicinity of Maxxi you can see the Basilica di Santa Croce al Flaminio, built in 1913 by Ing. A. Leonori. Here, according to tradition, the emperor Constantine I announced the end of the persecutions against Christians. The style chosen for the church project is the Romanesque basilica. The facade has a portico with six granite columns with Ionic capitals and is surmounted by a shell crown, taken from the Basilica di S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, embellished with a mosaic by Biagio Biagetti. The tall bell tower that stands on the right side repeats the typical shapes of the Latium Romanesque models.

Continue along Via Guido Reni cross Via Flaminia, you will see on the left the silhouette of the Sports Palace. This is one of the most valuable architectures created for the 1960 Olympics by Ing. Pier Luigi Nervi. The facility is designed to accommodate very different sports disciplines with maximum flexibility and has a capacity ranging from 4000 to 5000 spectators. The circular room has a diameter of 50 meters and is covered by a spherical cap, externally supported by 36 ipsilon-shaped trestles, arranged on the perimeter. The insertion of the building in an urban void increases its monumental perception.

We continue our route passing under the viaduct of Corso Francia, an important road construction that conveys traffic from the northern districts to Flaminio. Immediately on the right we find a long arcade animated by coffee and a library that introduces us to the Parco della Musica. The complex, signed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, is the point of arrival of a long history, all Roman, which dates back to 1934 when the old auditorium housed inside the Mausoleum of Augustus was demolished. The choice of the construction site for the new auditorium animated the whole post-war period, until in 1993, under pressure from the Academy of Santa Cecilia, the area on the edge of the Olympic Village was chosen. The auditorium consists of three independent halls with 2700, 1200 and 700 seats, respectively for the large symphonic orchestras, for chamber music and ballet, for contemporary music and experimental activities. The halls are designed as large soundboards lined with cherry wood inside and covered with lead plates on the outside, which recall the typical coating of the domes of the city. The three shells seem almost suspended on the brick masonry that covers all the external surfaces of the complex and are symmetrically arranged around an outdoor auditorium for 3000 spectators. During the construction of the building, the discovery of a villa dating back to Roman times has significantly modified the project which has also included a small archaeological museum. The whole complex is built on an artificial slope on which dense vegetation has been designed to relate it to the nearby Villa Glori. Enter the cavea and if possible, take a tour inside the green area by climbing the ramp on the left of the cavea. At the end of the tour, cross via P. de Coubertin and continue on the left, passing under the viaduct of Corso Francia and skirting the Palazzetto dello Sport. Just before arriving at the Carracci stop of the line 2 tramway, where our itinerary ends, pay attention to the large red sculpture that is located at the intersection with Viale Tiziano. It is the work “Goal!” by the italian sculptor Mario Ceroli, created for the 1990 World Cup and currently in complete state of neglect.