Museo della Citta

Museo della Citta was three phases project during my stay in Rome: a masterplan, a site strategy and a city museum. The design would be highly based on preserving existing site conditions and integrating them into a new scheme.

The first phase consisted in an urban masterplan focused on revitalizing the Testaccio area, a very challenging area in the city, with zones including Roma Tre University, a heavy traffic piazza, the 2000 years old Cestius pyramid, illegal gipsy settlements, a garbage waste hill etc. The solution proposes the closing of many traffic lanes and establishing two corridors of parks and boulevards, intersected by social, entertainment and cultural centres that would revitalize the area.

The second phase of the project was intended to solve a portion of the masterplan area and locate a city museum. Piazza Ostiense looked like a delicate urban issue that could benefit a lot from a reorganisation. The piazza is sliced by cultural sites such as the Aurelian Wall, by the Porta San Paolo and by the Cestius Pyramid, but also by a huge traffic node, a train station, an ad-hoc flee market, cheap stores etc. The proposition was to reroute the traffic through an underground passage and create a pedestrian plaza. The museum would enclose the piazza with two buildings, separated by a tunnel that frames the gate from the train station exit. It would act like a barrier from the heavy traffic and create a sanctuary.

The third part of the project was the design of the museum. The photographer Marco Delogu was one of the inspirations for the concept. He takes overexposed pictures of Roman ruins in the dark:

"where the light and the legend, the history and the nature, swallow up reality and transform it into a great apparition”.

His idea of Rome as a city of erosion and decay that only becomes alive through the eyes of the tourist resounded with me. The museum became an intricate maze of shadow and light that forced the viewer to see ancient relics in a distorted way.

The pictures shown below the project drawings are my attempt to capture the atmosphere of the museum – a visual analysis of how architecture and light can influence the path of passers-by. Certain contexts build anticipation and stir curiosity for the visitor. All pictures are taken in pre-renaissance towns in the North of Italy.

Museo della Citta is composed of two buildings serving different purposes. The vertical wing is the entrance into the museum and is composed of entertaining spaces and a temporary exhibition. A reception is placed in front of the main auditorium, and the entrance to the gallery is through the stairs below.

The horizontal building is the permanent exhibition wing, composed of 4 ramping floors with 4 programs. The end is on the top floor, which exits into a garden and then returns to the main atrium. The material is poured in concrete with a lime-stone punch-window facade (to match Libera’s post office across the street).

The narrative stretches across 4 levels with different characters: Imago Hominis, Forma Urbis in Architecture, History and Mythology and Nature and Landscape (below). I chose to describe Rome through its intricacy of layers and then peel them off one by one anti-chronologically. Imago Hominis portrays, through artificially lit statues in the dark, the image of the contemporary tourist. Forma Urbis is framing the monuments surrounding the site. History and Mythology represents the Gods, before the birth of the city. Nature and Landscape represents the Ovid’s Golden Age, before the time of the Gods. This gallery is on the roof top.