Villa Fantozzi
Rome- The vast majority ofRome’s inhabitants live on the outskirts of the city far away from the centre. The historic centre is charged with connotations and associations for Romans and non-Romans alike, whereas the outskirts suffer from a lack of any tangible identity; and this despite a range of unmistakable architectural and urban characteristics.
Arrangement – Atmosphere is created by the people’s interaction with their physical surroundings – indeed by architecture, by its intended function, as much as by people’s actual activities and habits. Places have, to a different degree, the latent ability to occupy a mental space in the consciousness of both citizens and visitors. To quote Aldo Rossi, they have the potential to play a role in the collective memory of a city.
A city with the density of Romeis full of conflicting interests and physical as well as functional superimposition. The fundamental reorganisation of a situation in a case of conflict is set against the arrangement – an intuitive type of examination and discussion which can be seen in many different forms inRome. Quickly coming to terms with the nature of a current situation, and by doing so creating new facts for the next person to come to terms with – in this way a situation is in a state of continuous change, without ever destroying its original character. This process makes it in fact all the more characteristic.
Traffic – Rome has a monocentric structure. Radial streets lead from the centre through the city gates in all directions into the surrounding regions. Inevitably they cross the Grande Raccordo Annulare, a circular motorway that surrounds the centre a considerable distance outside the city. The consular streets and stretches of the G.R.A. constantly suffer congestion. Very few cross connections like the Tangenziale Est ease the traffic. At the junction with the A24 the Tangenziale Est bends off suddenly going towards the city centre. It then continues on a stretch of overpass, the Sopraelevata, to the Aurelianic city walls.
Sopraelevata – The Sopraelevata (a stretch of overpass of the Tangenziale Est inner city motorway) is an odd infrastructural fragment of a traffic concept which relates to the entire city, but as such only an improvisation, with a considerable influence on the appearance and the quality of life for the inhabitants of the surrounding area. A walk on the Sopraelevata offers spectacular impressions of this part of the city. The decision has been taken to demolish the Sopraelevata. Parts of the surrounding areas are potentially available for development. Pressure for commercial development and public interest are in competition to harness this potential. By removing its original function the Sopraelevata becomes a relict, which can be used in different ways whilst still maintaining its essential characteristics: its complex interaction with different urban landscapes and the sculptural effect drawn from the sheer height on which the narrow lanes rest on a veritable forest of steel supports and from the vertical separation of the carriageways. The Sopraelevata is physically as well as symbolically the structuring urban element of the area, and at the same time represents an obstruction in its present form to any intensive exploitation of the central sites. This presents it with a key function in the development of the entire area.
Economics – The surface area of the development sites is considerably larger than that of the Sopraelevata. However if the total area visible when driving over the Sopraelevata is added, one can say the total surface area is roughly similar. The size of the Sopraelevata`s visual area would double if it were possible to stop or walk around on it. Starting from the point of public interest in creating open spaces in this zone, it is possible to conceptualise this imaginary area as a large park, wherein the Sopraelevata paves a way through the surrounding urban landscape which in turn forms the park area.
Strategy – The extremely negative associations which exist with the Sopraelevata can be traced back to its original function. If this function ceases to exist, the negative associations with it will nonetheless remain. It would be decidedly difficult to convince someone who has long suffered the noise, fumes and vibrations of the traffic passing on the Sopraelevata overhead, that it still has some inherent structural value. Only the positive assessment of an entirely new function could be attached to the structure in the short or medium term.
