BOOK| Failed-Icon Icon. Incremental Reuse of the Incomplete Project by S. Calatrava in Rome

Failed-Icon Icon Incremental Reuse of the ÂŤSports CityÂť Incomplete Project by Santiago Calatrava in Rome as an Urban Active Device in Continuous (Re)Construction

Thesis Author: Irina Bulgaru Advisors: Antonello Stella, Walter Nicolino Co-Advisor: Marco Mulazzani Department of Architecture at University of Ferrara

2

Index

I. The icons I.1 Definition and meaning I.2 Iconic architecture in 21 century I.3 Museums. Art as new religion I.4 Problems of Bigness

6 7 12 18 24

II. Icons in decline II.1 Santiago Calatrava iconography II.2 Concert Hall, Tenerife II.3 City of Arts and Science, Valencia II.4 City of Sports, Rome

28 29 34 38 44

III. The unfinished III.1 City of Sports - Media Icon of Failure III.2 The Unfinished as form of art III.3 Incompiuto. The birth of a style III.4 The potential of the Unfinished

54 55 66 76 82

IV. Project context IV.2 Agricultural Tor Vergata IV.2 Research area and University of Tor Vergata

96 97 106

V. Failed-Icon Icon as a city of Innovation and Experimentation V.1 Current State. A contemporary Ruin V.2 Incremental reuse. Process of architecture V.3 Ruin Reappropiation V.4 Contextualization. Ecological restoration V.5 Museum of Art&Technology. Multifunctional Reversible City V.6 Failed-Icon Icon - City of Innovation&Experimentation

110 111 120 124 128 134 140

VI. Thesis Sheets VII. Bibliography

144 156

4

Abstract A new architectural wave has emerged in the last decades - the iconic building which challenges the traditional architectural monument. If often the monument was the symbol of state power, iconic building should represent new concepts and values of contemporary society to replace the hole of insecurities and chaos.

«A true icon should not be about idiosyncrasy, hero worshiping or pampering of egos of creator but rather one that spontaneously engages and induces bond. Icon’s place need not be in the books of history but rather should be in hearts of its people»1 We need to replace the word «mega» as an iconic feature with «multiple» and democratic one. Interactivity, human scale, participation may become the integrally implicit peculiarity of these resolutions and icons can become pluralistic place rather than egocentric edifice. Architects may create spaces but it is the people who convert them into places.

A successful icon is therefore a building or a place which implies life and spontaneous participation.

We need to innovate the syntax and building types in order to [re]discover new architectural icons or iconic places in order to fulfill contemporary needs and in tune with economical and social requirements.

Economic crisis which lead to unfinished buildings as well as the complex societal issues that our society currently faces, require a great deal of innovation. In fact, they require a culture in which design skills and collaboration between designers, scientists and creative pioneers play key role. Collaboration, the entwinement of work and pleasure, mobility and sharing knowledge and expertise is almost a matter of course in this new experimental city.

The Ruin as a Failed-Icon Icon will host a new City where Art and Design will meet Science, Technology, Economy, Ecology and Business in order to innovate, experiment, practice and enlarge the fields through collaboration. The project is meant to be an Icon of Innovation of Rome, thanks to it’s unique spatial conditions and innovative program.

1.Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005

5

I. The Icons

1.1 Definition and meaning

ICON /ˈʌɪkɒn,ˈʌɪk(ə)n/ «mid 16th century: via Latin from Greek eikōn «likeness, image». Current senses date from the mid 19th century onwards.

1. a devotional painting of Christ or another holy figure, typically executed on wood and used ceremonially in the Byzantine and other Eastern Churches.

2. a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration.

3. a symbol or graphic representation on a screen of a program, option, or window.

4. a sign which has a characteristic in common with the thing it signifies, for example the word snarl pronounced in a snarling way.» ¹

1. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ definition/icon, 06.02.2019 [The Oxford English Dictionary is the principal historical dictionary of the English language]

8

Find the Similarities

Why do we need icons?

We live in a world that is constantly changing and we feel the need for something to hang onto. Replacing the static social, economic and political system with a world in continuous movement the icons have become the anchors through their use and design.

Are objects that we can project onto our memories, our sense of self and sense of belonging in case our social structures we are anchored on were to disappear.

The icons are stimulating our desires but also sometimes strange and even frightening.

The urban sprawl landscapes of real estate developments in a period of enormous freedom are disintegrating our cities, creating a huge disorientation.

There were attempts to reintroduce the traditional conventional forms, others encourage the idea of dissolution and then there are the ICONS. They stay for one thing and for many things at the same time.

The decline of religion, as postmodernists such as Jean-FrancoisLyotard have argued, a part of the increasing skepticism towards all metanarratives. Besides many architects are trying to exploit the iconic buildings for pure creative purposes.

1. Aaron Betsky, Icons: Magnets of Meaning, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1997 2.Fischer von Erlach, Entwurff einer Historischen Architektur, 1721

In the last ten years a new type of architecture has emerged. Driven by social forces and demand for economic augmentation and instant fame, the visually evocative landmark buildings has challenged the traditional architectural monument.¹ Analyzing the diversity of meanings of the term «icon» as a complex concept which exists for a long time, we can understand the challenge exposed within the new genre of architecture. An iconic building, in order to become glorified and successfully accepted by society should express a new image, a strong meaning, condensed in figural shape and stand out of the city. But also it should provide new meanings, sometimes controversial, but important metaphors and become a symbol to be venerated and worshipped in a profane society, which is not a simple task.

In the past, the main public buildings, for example, the church and the city hall, represented shared values and meanings and conveyed it through familiar conventions.

An icon, at the beginning was mostly a religious artifact, whose appearance and meaning were inspired by tradition.

They were conventional forms which could bring abstract ideas into

identifiable shape, that everyone could recognize. They were easily noticeable and standing out from the rest of the city, the stateman over the citizen.

Some towns keep these relation of power and meaning even nowadays.

Even if the number of iconic buildings are today more than ever, this practice is old, used also by our ancestors.

Architects and great authorities have always been interested in shocking an appealing gestures to express an attitude, or important act.

An example it is the statue the Colossus of Rhodes, which was constructed around the end of the third century BC. It was an exaggerated naked male statue, eight stories high, standing on the edge of a harbor, with a lighthouse beacon in one hand, visible from a long distance. The statue’s legs were leaning on both sides of the port’s entrance. This way ships, according to some paintings, were sailing below the statue from one side to another to enter the port ² Another example is the project of a city Dinocrates did for Alexander the Great.

Dinocrates, a Macedonian architect, who had the idea to design an important metaphor for Alexander the Great, shaping Mount Athos in form of a man.

He represented a fortified city in his 10

Above: The Colossus of Rhodes: the building as body, a double icon given the similitude between architecture and human shape (from Fischer von Erlach, Entwurff einer Historischen Architektur, 1721)

11

Below: Dinocrates, architect to Alexander the Great, designs a city in the shape of his client (from Fischer von Erlach, Entwurff einer Historischen Architektur, 1721)

1. Aaron Betsky, Icons: Magnets of Meaning, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1997 2. Ivi

right with a bowl for collecting water from the mountains. Was that a convincing icon? A city in shape of a man and a reservoir as the bowl? Even if the design could not work on the site Dinocrates wanted because there was not enough corn to feed the city in that place, he was engaged to design Alexandria, the most important city in Egypt, because of the grandiose and commendable design he proposed as an idea.² The icons which are condensed with glorifying metaphors have an impactful role and always have a durable life as an object, building or memory.

Famous individuals or things can also become icons, as the Statue of Liberty or Abraham Lincoln have done. Even if there is a great loss in faith in 21 century that provoked a loss of unapproachable, semidivine apparitions that are used to persist for long centuries, yet icons are surrounding us today. A surfboard, a blender, or a building can become iconic. A simple artifact with a good design and meaning or use, can take an important position in our world. It becomes a mechanism that allow people to see a carrier of meanings of larger structures within its simple shape or appearance.

«Icons are haunted objects of modern design»¹ So the Icons are the representation of the unpresentable. Icons are physical forms which contain a force that we cannot see, it could be a divinity or the mysterious working of a computer, that we can handle through a little icon on our screen. The icon exist in a material form for symbolizing some values, an object of veneration or even a fetish. It is also usually mysterious so one can find his own values to recognize in it, this way becoming a condensation of personal meanings, of invisible and unnamable forces that control our world. It is an object of art, use and enigmatic at the same time.

This phenomenon present in architecture it is happening to us and this trend will not disappear simply because critics do not like it. «The iconic building is an overdetermined genre, it has many deep causes that find support in the economy and society»² More than that, when a global culture has no determined faith, architectural icons are going to increase and the phenomenon to prosper. So an option is to learn and understand the new genre.

It is an opportunity to explore freely the possibilities of open-ended creativity.

12

1.2 Iconic architecture in 21th century

«The idolatry of the market has drastically changed our legitimacy and status even though our status has ever been higher …It is really unbelievable what the market demands [from architecture] now. It demands recognition, it demands difference and it demands iconographic qualities»¹

1.Paul Jones The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities, Liverpool Univ Pr ,30 novembre 2008 p.120

Right: «I am a whore and I am paid very well for high-rise buildings» [Philip Johnson’s famous Quote printed also in The New York Times]

14

The rise of modernization and continuous growth of the marketplace generated the decline of the monument.

When the cities start to disintegrate because of development, when the names of public spaces and districts change overnight, what could be the meaning of the monument? It can take any significance. In the space of about 50 years, the major public square in Paris next to the Tuilleries was re-named and restyled five times, depending on the events or leaders of the moment, until finally being called Place de la Concorde. If some time ago the important buildings should have express shared meanings through well-known conventions, today those conventions are mainly commercial forces and the demand for instant fame.

Public architecture is now required to be an surreal sculpture and also at once provocative and practical, but also without the context that religion or ideology once provided. This contrary requirements drives the architect to create a new convention: the enigmatic signifier.ยน This will include many meanings without naming one. As many prophets wrote in 19th century, this building art reflects its time, and the Modern Age is commercial.

15

1. Cf. Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005

1. Ivi, p.17 Above: Metaphorical analysis of intended and accidental overtones [Swiss Re Headquarters by Norman Foster, London]. Drawings by Madelon Vriesendorp

These buildings have the capacity to make us wonder, be critical or simply observe the world around us. Some of them take the figural approach to the extremes, but the main goal of it is to make as aware of, at least, a small part of our world through the medium of design. Iconic design does not usually solve problems, instead, it makes us aware of both issues and potentialities.

But also the new iconic building changes the notion of appropriateness and commonalty being a open notion and open-interpretation for everyone. It says any shed can be a temple, any abode can be a landmark. This radical form of democracy and egalitarianism seems to strike at the heart of collective notions of the same faith. Is democracy turning against itself? Is rampant individualism killing the public realm?š There is no rule how a building or object can become an icon, the reason varies from time to time and from place to place, as it depends on specific conditions. In the past. the religion used to be one of the main driving forces, but nowadays are usually the corporate public relations. Today the new corporate settlement tends to become an icon, preferably with a nickname as 16

as a symbol reminder about its existence, simple associations that we all love to hate “erotic gherkin”, “shard” or “crystal beacon”[see previous page] This does not mean that this buildings are creatures of such bodies, but they are mainly the reason that causes their appearance. But this is the point of a democratic icon, to upset the context, transform conventions and habits, challenge the hierarchy, use crime, paranoia, as Nietzsche advised his supermen to do in order to succeed in changing existing order. Iconic building has the power to represent at the same time fear and attraction that 21th century society respond to. If society has lost the interest in going to church, and prefer the sport of following politics, dedicate their time to shopping, then naturally Prada becomes the icon of the moment.

Fashion and clothes are worshipped, famous people are considered like saints, and money became the most important thing that a global culture believes in.

What makes icons so valuable to us is our capacity to use them and interpret in terms of our own values. This is the main characteristic of the icon object, to maintain their significance even after their disappearance, are things that 17

do not go away, because of our predisposition to create connections with our personal values.

An icon is also a status symbol. The economist Robert Reich is describing our society as governed by those who condense bits of knowledge into obtainable units. Therefore, icons are nodes of information about the world, physical containers of values, condensers of complex technological structures and symbols.

The commissions of the big corporate global companies, which initiate the creation of an icon have in turn a mediated building by the mass media and all TV or other forms of communication, therefore consenting a huge amount of capital, and the «iconic architect» is also important in getting this attention. The «iconic architect» as a consequence is encouraged to take risks, to break the conventions, innovate, win his competitors.¹ As Philip Johnson as a representant leading this charge in 1980s, proclaimed «I am a whore»² and the argument for stating this was that he was well paid and also is always upstaging his competitors by approaching diverse, risky forms and concepts in his design. The urgency to shock and take risks, within a global

1.Cf. Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005 2. «I am a whore and I am paid very well for high-rise buildings» [Philip Johnson’s famous Quote printed also in The New York Times]

1. Cf. Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005 Right First: «enigmatic signifier» [CCTV Tower, Beijing by Rem Koolhas] Second: «too-explicit icon»[Luxor Hotel, Las Vegas by Veldon Simpson] Third: «anti-icon icon»[Scottish Parliament by Enric Miralles]

corporate culture makes understandable the distaste of architects for this direction. It is a difficult decision, to get involved in the mainstream and be outrageous but with the risk to look foolish, or to not compete and be damned. There are, according to Jencks, different kind of icons.

The strategy which Koolhaas claim as successful is the “enigmatic signifier”.

Enigmatic signifiers are condensed information about traditional, popular, known overtones which are suggested not told, felt not named. It is a suggested direction that involves the viewer to complete the puzzle of meanings. The CCTV Tower exhibit this concept by sustaining that an enigmatic signifier should have opposite codes in one [vertical and horizontal skyscraper] Another kind of icons are the “tooexplicit icons” which are usually a reflection of pop-architecture and Disney look. Lack of multiple meanings, explicitness, obviousness make this icons one-liners. Could be buildings as huge amplifications of animals or human beings or objects.

The third he calls it «anti-icon icon» which is a building that grows from its site, not simply introduced in it. It is an organic growth, with descents in Italian architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright.¹

18

1.3 Museums.

Art as new religion

«. . . culture can fill the gaps left by the departure of religion in modern life and art can help us with the problems of the soul. I believe that art should be propaganda on behalf of something else, not theology, but psychology. I believe that art should serve the needs of our psyche as efficiently and as clearly as it served the needs of theology for hundreds of years.»¹

1.Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists, UK, 2012

Right: Iconic museums from the last 60 years

20

Art as religion, the museum as cathedral?

The contemporary global icon can be a standing-out museum that proclaims itself, according to the cliché, as the new church or cathedral of the epoch.

For some this idea comes together with the prevision that a work of art will become the most important object of the market. The skeptical ideology bears on the so called iconic works and iconic artists, and demonstrate how long travelled the notion of the icon, from early Christian past as a sacred spiritual object of worship to nowadays as an object of shopping. As Koolhaas previously claimed that «shopping is doubtless the last form of public activity»¹ Yet, in spite of the hype, one should not underrate the public desire for good iconic buildings. This buildings make people leave the house and enjoy the expressive aspects of the public realm Other philosophers, like Alain de Botton has a diverse prevision about the direction society could take in the era of decline of organized faith. He speaks about how culture that could replace the gap made provoked by the loss of faith.

The art as a therapy for spiritual charge as the religion did before.

21

He is convinced that Art has a lot to teach us about what to remember, about hope, how to be less lonely, being appreciative. Art is propaganda for what really matters: the way we live rather the way we think we should live.

«1. Art is a tool for memory. Art is a bucket that holds our experiences and our emotions. It also draws our attention to those things that are most significant and opens us to facets of the world which would otherwise be invisible.

2. Art has a very important function in giving us hope.

3. Art reminds us that we are not alone in our suffering. Art provides us with moments of communion around the dark realities of our lives, in a way that is eloquent and dignified.

4. Art can rebalance us. Art is a rebalancing agent. The kind of art that moves us and draws us in, is very often a work of art that our unconscious recognizes contains a concentrated dose of our missing virtues. What are we missing? What are we afraid of? What have we lost touch with?

5. Art is fantastic propaganda tool on behalf of the good. Art can stir us, motivate us.

6. We need role models around us in

1.Rem Koolhaas, Generic City, United States of America, 1995

1. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qFnNgTSkHPM [Alain de Botton on Art as Therapy]

order to keep us on track. Art does this.

Many works of art have a philosophy of life within them.

7. Works of art have always attempted to open our eyes to the neglected value of the everyday. Art helps us to re-see certain jaded aspects of our lives we’ve grown spoiled about.

8. Art can induct us toward essential truths of life. We are creatures that lose perspective easily, producing great anxiety. Our eye is stilled in front of something huge, dignified and beautiful.

9. Art allows us to rediscover the virtues and values in each other. Art expands the conversation. It makes us less lonely with the more sad and private parts of us. Art reminds us that love is an attempt to harmonize the jagged, to regularize the irregular. Art reminds us of the failure of curiosity in modern life and the desperate need to remain curious.

10. Art helps us to feel proud and involved with our community.

11. Art is very good at showing us how things can be.

12. And finally, art is a living resource for our hearts. Not just an academic or historical exercise.»¹ So the incredible triumph of art nowadays merged with the expressive

building to create an «icon». Some of positive examples of iconic buildings which gained popularity and big success in the world together with the triumph in the art world are the museum in Bilbao of Gehry or his Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

Frank Gehry has changed the course of architecture designing his museum at Bilbao. He opened the door to a new concept of representing art and architecture together which, as he claims, was an involuntary act. His building was analyzed from then on, to understand the characteristics that an iconic successful building might have.

The building has sinuous expressive forms, organic waves which seem common but at the same time abstract form, open to interpretation. Madelon Vriesendorp is her drawings associated the building with a mermaid, fish or artichoke. So the associative qualities of an iconic building are important in fixing it in our mind and easily remember. The building also is a successful example from urbanistic and architectural point of view. According to the market researchers who have studied Frank Gehry’s icon, the building works in transforming Bilbao also from economic point of view. Bilbao has been 22

transformed from an industrial city to a cultural city through so called «museum-as-cathedral». The exceptional museum brought in an extra 1.3 million of visitors the first year, in 1998, 1.1 million the second and by 2000, the museum reached 3 million.

Shock and tourism.¹ The extra tax revenue for Bilbao was, in total, more than $70 million, and also 137 corporate members, which implied energy for the development of the city, therefore the city outstands from the rest of Spain.

As a consequence was born the «Bilbao Effect», famous through the media and the aspiration of every big city. So it is about getting the right architect in the right moment, take economic and cultural risks, and the initial invested money can double or triple.

«Cities are competing against each other for icons and are using international architects to drum up the «something different»²- the iconic building.

A successful museum building nowadays is, shortly, a giant iconostasis asking to be decoded, to be associated, to be filled with meanings and to be an object of worship, which is the reason people feel the need to come back again and again to try to fathom the meaning of the building 23

1.Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005, p.18 2. Robert Booth, «Speed Merchants», Building Design, 2003, and Part Two, «Fortune Cookie», 2003, p.10 Right: Metaphorical analysis of the terms critics used to describe Gehry’s building: a mermaid, fishes, a duck, a constructivist artichoke [Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

by Frank Gehry]. Drawings by Madelon Vriesendorp

24

1.4 Problems of Bigness

«Beyond a certain scale, architecture acquires the

properties of Bigness. The best reason to broach

Bigness is the one given by climbers of

Mount Everest: «because it is there.»

Bigness is ultimate architecture.»¹

1.Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau S,M,L,XL, United States of America, 1995, p.495

1.Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau S,M,L,XL, United States of America, 1995

In general, big buildings tend to ignore their context by becoming independent objects in space. These objects, or space occupiers, are inwards focused, and do not create usually any form of external place for people to dwell.

They transform the city from a place of public activity to become a place driven by efficiency and profit. Nevertheless, we will never stop designing big buildings, so we do so should consider the city as an entity, highlighting public activity, quality, experience and formal expression. In other words, there is a need to reduce big building’s impact without even reducing their size.

The size alone of a building manifest an ideological issue, not depending of the intent of its architects. Because of the involuntary or voluntary avoidance of treatment of this problem, the phenomenon of big buildings continues to grow in complexity and becomes more slow in approaching.

Because of the Big Bang in technology, we are able to have random circulation, artificial interiors, accelerated construction, air-conditionate spaces the architecture becomes an independent entity which does not need to externalize, therefore becomes a very complex richer programming machine

Being driven by quantitative forces initially, Bigness has been for nearly one hundred years, a phenomenon without thinkers, a revolution without a plan.¹ The biggest thinker of Bigness Rem Koolhaas, wrote his «Theory of Bigness» based on five theorems: «1. Beyond a certain critical mass, a building becomes a etc. Building. Such a mass can no longer be controlled by a singular architectural gesture, or even by any combination of architectural gestures. The impossibility triggers the autonomy of its parts, which is different from fragmentation: the parts remain committed to the whole.

2. The elevator- with its potential to establish mechanical rather than architectural connections-and its family of related inventions render null and void the classical repertoire of architecture. Issues of composition, scale, proportion, detail are now moot.

The ‘art’ of architecture is useless in architecture 3. In Bigness, the distance between core and envelope increases to the point where the facade can no longer reveal what happens inside. The humanist expectation of ‘«honesty» is doomed; interior and exterior architectures become separate projects, one dealing 26

with the instability of programmatic and iconographic needs, the otheragent of disinformation- offering the city the apparent stability of an object.

Where architecture reveals, BIGNESS perplexes; BIGNESS transforms the city from a sum of certainties into an accumulation of mysteries. What you see is no longer what you get.

4. Through size alone, such buildings enter an amoral domain, beyond good and bad. Their impact is independent of their quality.

5. Together, all these breaks-with scale, with architectural composition, with tradition, with transparency, with ethicsimply the final, most radical break: BIGNESS is no longer part of any tissue. It exists; at most, it coexists. Its subtext is f**k cotext.»¹ Therefore Bigness without a theory and good analyzation, could become a collage-architecture, and architects as «Frankenstein» creators.

Bigness proposes a new strategy in which everything is architecture, all yield in one big structure and reassembles what it breaks. Bigness through its very rigidities becomes a augmentation of different events in a single container. It generates strategies to put independence and 27

interdependence within a huge symbiosis that supports rather than challenge specificity. Bigness is the very strategy which looks forward to generate genuinely new relationships between functions and entities, which makes their identities to evolve through contamination rather than differentiation - Bigness goes back to a model of programmatic alchemy.

Bigness keep things apart and also make them interact, generates programmatic coexistence and expands identities, is the most and least architecture.

Bigness involve all professionals to create it, does not perceive social hierarchies inside of it. Bigness creates a new kind of city.

Even the book S,M,L,XL, a kind of biography of an office of architecture, worked more like a medium, as a laboratory where different contents and agents could take part in a regime of hybrid authorship, as the acknowledgements of the book admit.

All those individuals immersed in the production and reception of S,M,L,XL equally contribute to the full construction of this volume.

And in so doing, the book turned into a mechanism for exchange and interaction, or a book-machine²

1.Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau S,M,L,XL, United States of America, 1995 2. http://www.zeroundicipiu. it/2016/03/30/smlxl-not-only-anobject/, 07.02.2019 [S,M,L,XL: not (only) an object] Above: Book as an Icon [S,M,L,XL

by Rem Koolhaas] Right: Book published in mass media [S,M,L,XL by Rem Koolhaas]

28

29

II. Icons in decline

2.1 Santiago Calatrava iconography

How could he [Calatrava] be commissioned to build some of the most important infrastructural projects worldwide, with the amount of controversy that surrounds his work and reputation? One of the answers is definitely because it is fascinating.ยน

1. Cf. https://theculturetrip.com/ europe/spain/articles/santiagocalatrava-architectures-biggestscandal/, 08.02.2019

Spanish visionary Santiago Calatrava is renowned around the world as an architect, structural engineer, sculptor, and artist. Famed for bridges as much as buildings, he has made his name through buildings of culture, science, and faith, and across his many famous bridges, explore the neo-futuristic structures, unique fusion of organic forms, deft engineering, and dramatic, aerodynamic impact.

From the Athens 2004 Olympic sports complex and the Museum of Tomorrow to the Peace Bridge in Calgary, Alamillo Bridge in Seville, and the Mujer Bridge in Buenos Aires, Calatrava’s creations show particular interest in the meeting point of movement and balance. With influences ranging from NASA space design to da Vinci’s nature studies, the structures dazzle with a sense of lightness, agility, and aerodynamism, but always with a graceful poise amid their particular surroundings.

This compact introduction explores Calatrava’s unique aesthetic with key projects from his career, from early breakthroughs to his most recent work.

Through buildings of culture, science, faith, and across his many famous bridges, we explore his integration of organic forms and human movements, 31

and a uniquely fluid futurism, soaring towards tomorrow.¹ Calatrava has often been accused of inefficiency and publicly held responsible for ruinous projects. On top of that, he’s received a bad name for making his construction works extremely expensive, as he often found himself having to double the budgets for the execution of his designs.

Considering that a lot of them are public works, commissioned by the governments and paid by the taxes, it certainly makes the controversy understandable. How could he be commissioned to build some of the most important infrastructural projects worldwide, with the amount of controversy that surrounds his work and reputation? The answer is definitely fascination.

Half of the architecture community publicly reject Calatrava, while the other half declare Calatrava to be a visionary, misunderstood artist. But a question arises in all these stories: what did the governments do in order to control Calatrava’s works and his rising budgets? Beyond the aesthetics, beyond the budgets, beyond the structural problems, Calatrava is also a symbol of a lack of public works management, and

1. More about in: Philip Jodidio, Peter Gössel Santiago Calatrava: 1951, Architect, Engineer, Artist, Los Angeles, 2007

1. Philip Jodidio, Santiago Calatrava, 1998, p.16 [Pier Luigi Nervi commentary] 2. Denyan Sudjic, An Olympian who could Run and Run, Observer, Review, 2004, p.6

governments should certainly take part of the responsibility. So why is he still so acclaimed and wanted on a global scale?

His architecture has the power to transmit messages, common natural metaphors which one can easily recognize and feel part of.

Calatrava admits that he is using the sculptures as a starting point for the design, which helps to make an esthetic choice and to represent a consciously anthropomorphic concept.

He often makes reference to commentary of Pier Luigi Nervi who says «Its very difficult to explain the reason for our immediate approval of forms which come to us from a physical world with which we, seemingly have no direct tie whatsoever. Why do these forms satisfy and move us in the same manner as natural things such as flowers, plants and landscape to which we have become accustomed through numberless generations? It can also be noted that these achievements have in common a structural essence, a necessary absence of all decoration [...] »¹, therefore the architect admits he loves to challenge the bonds between architectural creation and the physical laws, to allow his creation, even in its

strict technical obedience, to become a work of art.

Calatrava’s style has been heralded as bridging the division between structural engineering and architecture. He derives his inspiration from a Spanish modernist engineering that includes Felix Candela and Antonio Gaudi. Nonetheless, his style is very personal and derives from numerous studies he makes of the human body and the natural world. As Calatrava is not only architect but also sculptor and painter, claiming that his architecture combines all the arts in one.

He is organic architect who finds his inspiration in human body and natural world, and because of his background in both architecture and engineering, he has learned to combine both visually striking and structurally daring.

Santiago Calatrava carried out extensive studies of anatomy human, birds and animals and truly his design reflects his philosophy.

Calatrava’s architecture do not suffer from lack of iconicity, because sometimes they were conceived as being so. His structures were associated by Sudjic with «the set for a 1950 science fiction film, prefabricated Gaudi, extruded from a toothpaste tube by the yard»² repeated like a mantra.

32

His thesis in 1981 was «Concerning the Foldability of Space Frame», showing his interest in unfolding structures, skeletal bones in movement. «What keeps Calatrava’s engineering from becoming a kitsch resides in such inventions, some of which resembles an unfolding umbrella, others rippling backbone of an animal, the struts of a fan, or the layered wing of a bird. As these metaphors suggest, Calatrava works through natural and physical analogies. he takes a few simple structural ideas from the living world, perfects their outline, repeats them as startling white members and then has them built with loving care. It is the extraordinary quality of construction that, again, lifts the work above the censure of the K-word- for kitsch is a form of degraded rubbish and no one can accuse Calatrava of skimping on the finish or the details.»¹ The problem is only that his architecture not always work or respond to the needs of the places it is constructed on. He is used to be known as a man who can always be relied on to deliver behind schedule and way over budget, and whose multi-million projects, whether they be slippery bridges or mobile mechanisms, have often ended up 33

immobilized.

The initial pomp that heralded each new undertaking around the world, and the subsequent complications during construction, have been amply covered by the media over the years.

But this does not explain why Calatrava switched from being an wanted architect around to the most demonized.

Now journalist Llàtzer Moix offers an insight into Calatrava’s fall from grace in his latest book, Queríamos un Calatrava (We wanted a Calatrava).

Moix describes a man elevated to god-like status, a talented artist, but an arrogant individual convinced of his place in the history books.² So it is his architecture in relation to its context.

Becoming failed icons of a iconic architect. The Spanish public also came to view Calatrava as a symbol of the wasteful, megalomaniacal governing class of the years leading up to the crisis.

Such projects are only made possible by giant debt arrangements. Yet, not only do these projects often fail to generate the future income but such iconic developments also have the power to contribute to distortions of capital (economic crises) beyond the project and the city itself.

1.Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005, p.138 2. Cf. Llàtzer Moix Queríamos un Calatrava, [We wanted a Calatrava], Spain, 2016 Right: Conceptual drawings by Santiago Calatrava. [Inspiration from natural world and human body as architectural philosophy]

34

2.2 Concert Hall, Tenerife

«Such projects are only made possible by giant debt arrangements. Yet, not only do these projects often fail to generate the future income but such iconic developments also have the power to contribute to distortions of capital (economic crises)»¹

1. Brott Sott. Calatrava in Athens: The Architect as Financier and the Iconic City, The Journal of Public Space,Australia, 2017, p. 15

Right: Santiago Calatrava, Concert Hall, Santa Cruz, Tenerife, 19992003. [A ÂŤbreaking waveÂť, 60m high, sails over the main concert hall]

36

Many of the projects of Santiago Calatrava are known to overcome the limits of the initial budget. He considers that in a period of crisis, nevertheless, we should continue to construct iconic, expressive buildings despite the lack of resources. Therefore the construction site works become almost a craft.

Working within the extremes of structural expressionism, shows exaggeratedly the aspects of structural force and constructional reality, repeating a structural unit way too often.

He intends to challenge the contemporary architects as the iconic architect but sometimes his ambition overwhelms his judgement as in case of concert hall on the island of Tenerife.

The main idea of the building was to become the icon of the place and transform the economy of the city just as Sydney Opera House did for its city, but «resulted in one of the biggest empty gestures in architectural history»¹ His favorite reference bird-shape, seen also in many other of his works and sculptures, has an upper wing, swooping over the concert hall, but the gesture besides being a very expensive act, was literally empty. Even if it pretends to be a thin light shell, the V truss actually is resting on an invisible point about 37

half-way up the curve. The most controversial thing is Calatrava’s claim «I believe there is truth in my structures» which is not so true in this case. Are appreciable, though, the finish materials and expressive interiors, which helps to rescue the scheme from complete bathos. «Calatrava used concrete because according to him it allows to «mold forms and defy the laws of gravity, as the ridge that falls from the sky.» Allowing this 3500-Ton «wave» of concrete to be lifted from the ground, and to stay motionless in the air.

The whiteness of concrete is achieved by using a high proportion of sand and titanium dioxide and is finished with «trencandis» broken ceramic tiles of less than eight centimeters thick that characterize the works of Gaudi.

A wide range of formwork skill was required: from simple TRIO panel formwork for the foundations, climbing formwork for symmetrically arranged round and curved sail-like walls, to an unusual special construction for the approximately 100 m long self supporting roof assembly. A steel construction with four longitudinal girders formed the basic structure of the massive «wing roof» and was braced with trussed frameworks.

1.Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005, p.138 2. Lahouti Navid, Theatre in the Last 50 Years (thesis), Politecnico di Milano, 2013, p.22 [Case study: Tenerife Auditorium, Santa Cruz Spain] Right: Formwork carriage with moving and adjustment equipment [All carriage movements are carried out using three independently operated hydraulic circuits: moving forward and retracting, positioning as well as shuttering and striking]

This steel skeleton was covered with reinforced concrete which presented construction teams with a difficult task: climbing formwork had to operate crane independently, and working platforms needed to be horizontally adjusted in every position. In addition, conversion work on the formwork elements was to be kept to a minimum and the maximum load-bearing capacity of the wings, including the loads from the steel and concrete, had to be taken into consideration.»² If there is a limit how far you can go, Calatrava usually goes one step further. «Why can’t we get away with such outlandish expressionism? Because we don’t have the guts and skill?» is asking the architect. But maybe it’s because we don’t have the reason.?

38

2.3 City of Arts and Science, Valencia

«Designed at the start of the century by Santiago Calatrava, Valencia’s hometown heroturned-villain, the opera house and concert hall on the bank of a dried-up river once seemed a symbol of Spain’s roaring economy and buoyant cultural scene. Now the bubble has burst, years of austerity have taken their toll – and Calatrava’s space ship is literally falling to pieces, the façade’s ceramic tiles dropping on the heads of passersby. »¹

1. www.theguardian.com , 08.02.2019 [Architecture’s epic fails: buildings we love to hate]

Right: Santiago Calatrava, City of Arts&Science, Valencia [L’Hemisfèric reflected in the water]

40

Designed by Valencia-born Santiago Calatrava, the complex City of Arts itself is filled with bone-like constructions that recall a gargantuan dinosaur’s graveyard. The spectacular City of Arts and Sciences was part of the second half of the 1990s Valencia’s PP government redefinition plan of city’s urban, cultural and tourist profiles.

Constructed between 1993 and 2008 in the Park of Turia, it occupies a surface that covers 35 hectares, 1800 m in length, and it contains the following elements: L’Hemisferic, where IMAX movies are shown; Laserium; the Museu de les Ciencies Princep Felipe (inaugurated in 2000); the L’Umbracle, which houses a huge parking lot and wooded garden; L’Oceanografic, an aquarium of more than 110,000 m2 that houses representatives of the planet’s major marine ecosystems; and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia (inaugurated in 2006), a four-room auditorium for opera, dance and theatre. Subsequently, the Agora building opened in 2012, albeit unfinished and without a concrete use; the Assud d’Or bridge was also added. All of these buildings were designed by Santiago Calatrava, with the exception of L’Oceanografic, which was the work of Felix Candela.

41

In this futuristic complex, large global, media-focused events have been developed, including music festivals such as Music Television Winters, sporting events such as the Association of Tennis Professionals Tennis Masters and the Global Champions Tour for Equestrians (2009), computer events such as the Campus Party, the 2006 World Meeting of Families presided over by Pope Benedict XVI, and movie shoots.¹ The port project was also pre-planned to transform the port into a compartment for extravagant ship cruises, and thus the city attempted to attract a special clientele of travelers, professionals and senior executives to main events. The project that is called a science museum, it’s all but impossible to exhibit anything inside it. The huge museum and arts complex, just never attracted the predicted stampede of visitors.

At any rate, the city has been completely transformed on the northern waterfront, as part of a strategy of urban branding oriented towards the international promotion of the city. It should be stressed that the deployment of the official cultural policy which involved major projects/events presents two versions that attempt to attract

1. Cf. Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins, Gil-Manuel Hernàndez i Martí & Francisco Torres, Urban Development and Cultural Policy “White Elephants”: Barcelona and Valencia, European Planning Studies, 2015

1. Ivi, p. 10 2. Ibid.

different audiences.

«First, there is «programming» oriented for consumption by a massive, popular and global audience and in this sense, pop-rock concerts, computer and technological events, sporting events, and various shows are held, in addition to religious events such as the large Mass for the Pope’s visit. Second, however, actions are also implemented that target a select, highly cultured, and distinguished audience, which is also global or cosmopolitan, as in the case of operas, equestrian competitions, tennis championships or social parties»¹ The economic analysis of the project encompassed its importance to the strategy of promoting the city and subordinating the cultural policy to this goal: the project’s initial budget (308 million euros) augmented, based on work changes, to 1300 million in 2012.

The rising cost of maintenance should be added to this initial capital because of the continual drop in income for the emblematic areas of the project which otherwise are disorganized and bad managed.

In sum, large events, primarily have contributed to an enormous public debt (29.643 million euros, or 29.8% of Valencia’s gross domestic product),

closely tied to the amplification of clientele networks and countless cases of corruption, in which several Valencian government agents are implicated. As stated in a recent estimate, these cases of corruption involved 12,500 million euros of public money. Finally, it is important to observe the rapid collapse of almost all of the area’s cultural and sports projects.

In addition, some of the complex’s most expressive buildings either suffer from structural architectural inadequacies (Prince Phillip Museum of Sciences, ingrained, inflexible area that was almost dismantled by the marina, which has lacked either events or luxury mega-yachts for problems, not defects in his blueprint. Palau de les Arts, are unfinished (Agora) or have lost the continued, dramatic purpose for which they were intended (Palace of the Opera, Velese Vents).² The project’s star fell even more after the 2008 economic crisis saw Valencia’s economy crumple, a collapse in which mega-projects like the City played a significant role.

Housed in a cash strapped city whose area required a €4.5 billion bailout from central government two years ago, it might look that things could hardly get worse for the City of Arts and Science.

42

It seems, however, that they have. Only after seven years after completion, parts of the complex are already falling apart. Valencia is now suing Calatrava for the flaws in his design.

Calatrava, meanwhile, says that it is poor construction that is causing the degradation. The City of Arts and Sciences, and the events that it has hosted have consumed Valencia’s energy, public money and cultural policy stimulation. Its fall, if only because of the amount of its debt, has caused the vanishing of almost all of its cultural and sports projects and the ruination of global Valencia’s marketing, which uses the complex as its iconic representant.

«When the Valencian cosmopolitan bubble burst, it became clear that the “white elephant” was too large.

Therefore, this model of cultural policy could initially have had some virtue in generating additional resources for a sector, culture, which previously held a secondary position on the public agenda, or it could have been conceived as a way to develop an integrative and inclusive public policy.»¹ Instead, the model resulted as an instrument that is more oriented towards external promotion and less oriented to promote the cultural practices of the locals.

43

1. Cf. Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins, Gil-Manuel Hernàndez i Martí & Francisco Torres, Urban Development and Cultural Policy “White Elephants”: Barcelona and Valencia, European Planning Studies, 2015, p.11 Right: City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Dinosaur Animatronics Exhibition [Dinosaur Factory Inc. is professional Animatronic Products Factory in China]

44

2.4 The Sports City, Rome

The City of Sport is the ambitious project proposed for the candidacy of the city of Rome at the Olympic Games of 2024 and stems from the need to host sports activities of multiple types.

1. www.theguardian.com , 08.02.2019 [Architecture’s epic fails: buildings we love to hate]

Right: Santiago Calatrava, Sports City, Rome [The incomplete project in Rome]

46

47

Above: Project’s sources of inspiration, Architectural philosophy:glorious past of Rome, Colosseum, Pantheon, Circus Maximu[images found in project presentation]

Above: Project render by S. Calatrava studio [project presentation]

48

The project The master plan for the project Calatrava foreseen in the area of Tor Vergata University is designed as a long urbanistic promenade, connecting the Rectorate of the University with the City of Sports - clearly getting inspiration from the Circus Maximus in Rome. The park bordered by a double row of trees, in front of the City of Sports is intended to become a forum for meetings, social and cultural events. The extension of the main project included the provision of student housing and new buildings for university. City of Sport is also the ambitious project proposed for the candidacy of the city of Rome at the Olympic Games of 2024 and stems from the need to host sports activities of multiple types. The project area is situated on the Rome-Naples highway, including additional infrastructure for completion of the area development.

The Sports City has two main pavilions, one for the multi-purpose events, Palasport, and another one for accommodating the swimming pool, Palanuoto. The two pavilions are separate, and allow different events to be host at the same time. The Palasport - Palanuoto complex will also include gymnasia, laboratories, classrooms, 49

teaching facilities, a fitness and rehabilitation center as well as offices and shops. The main building include a walkway that rises from the ground, accompanying visitors to the entrance hall at an altitude of +8 meters from the ground. The atrium is located in the interstitial zone of the two emerging volumes and allows the visitor to participate in the activities of the two distinct areas. The attic floor is supported by a reinforced concrete structure with double arches, with the main lowered arch of 124 meters light.

Below the outdoor walkway, a mirror of water will allow the reflection of the structure. The two mirrored hyperbolic shapes, defined as ÂŤsailsÂť by the architect, are constructed using steel geodesic reticular structures.

A track-and-field and an outdoor swimming pool will rounded off the external sporting area. The Rectorate tower is configured as a spiral winding around itself . All architectural aspects along the central promenade will be characterized by the transparency of the buildings with alternating solid surfaces and glazed sections creating softly diffused light in the interiors and lighting effects externally, accentuated by reflections from the water.š

1. Cf. https://calatrava.com/projects/ universita-degli-studi-di-roma-torvergata-roma.html, 09.02.2019 [Santiago Calatrava official site]

1. Cf. XXV Congresso C.T.A, The italian steel days,[Complex steel shapes: the sails of City os Sport in Rome], Volume I, 2015, p. 774

The structural complexity The formal complexity of the work can be seen starting from the volumes placed to support the majestic «sails» Indeed, the base of connection between the steel «sails» and the ground floors it is made up of a series of reinforced concrete walls, defined from a high degree of morphological variability and each having a different position.

Palanuoto and Palasport structures are characterized by the same dimensions and shape, they are mirrored across the longitudinal axis that ideally divides the two arenas and across transversal axis passing through the «spinal» arches.

The structures have a concave profile in transversal direction and a convex symmetric profile in longitudinal direction.

The covering surface material designed by the Santiago Calatrava is laid over reticular structures in steel, covered with glass panels.

The structure consists of 5 systems which give, through their intersection, to one double curved surface. The central element is represented by two symmetrical arches. The main beams and main vertical elements have a tubular profile. Connections between the

main beams and the horizontal elements are made through the diagonals. At the base of the structure is a ring that holds together the whole structure.

The total weight of the steel needed to be used in the roof structure is estimated over 4,000 tons, distributed over an area of about 14,000 square meters.

During the construction site is necessary a rigorous control of all phases of assemblage, which makes the construction expensive and slow.

For the main steel structure were used tubular profiles of 457, 12.5mm, 16mm and 20 mm, HEB 220 and HEB 220 and HEB 450, and for the base rings L-shaped profiles.

The assembly process of the metallic carpentry has been defined strictly by providing different phases, according to the type of work and the level reached.

It was necessary to plan for every 186 steps of assembly different phases which controls the right geometry with the help of two different cranes (one for loading and another one for supporting and movement). So a particularity of the construction site of City of Sports

by Calatrava is using the biggest and highest cranes in Europe, with the maximum radius of 122m and the load of 600 tons.¹ 50

51

1.

4.

2.

5.

3.

4.

Left: Ibid.

1. central arches 2.horizontal connections 3. structural ring from the base 4. vertical beams 5. diagonals 6. 3D model

Right: Ivi, p. 776 Assembly sequence of the ÂŤsailsÂť steel structure with two loading cranes and several cranes for supporting and movement

52

Because of a potent mixture of political and economic difficulties, compounded by the 2008 financial crisis, the City of Sport construction site is stopped since 2012, reaching 40% of its completion.

The foundation structures and the reinforced concrete elevation have been completed up to the ceiling of the upper level of 8m. One of the two «sails» is covered by the geodesic steel structure and the vertical connections are structurally completed, while the excavations for the pool’s foundations are already prepared. In the Palasport, structural reinforced concrete works have been partially completed.

Originally the structure was supposed to be finished by 2009. But costs had risen from 65 million euro to 608 million during the works. Today the project is an abandoned skeleton which undergoes degeneration and degradation of the built parts every day. If the building remain abandoned over the years serious structural damage may appear due to the action of weathering agents on open rebars and un-welded joints.

In the Italian media the project was called «a cathedral in the desert», an «emblem of defeat» a «vero e proprio capolavoro senza futuro» (a veritable masterpiece without a future)»¹ 53

1. https://www.fastcompany. com/3057364/inside-the-halfbuilt-skeleton-of-calatravas-otherboondoggle, 09.02.2019 [about a report in La Repubblica In July 2011] Right: Actual state of City of Sport, 02.10.2018

54

55

III. The Unfinished

3.1 Sports City Media Icon of Failure

mediatization /ˌmiːdɪətʌɪˈzeɪʃn/ «In communication studies or media studies, mediatization is a theory that argues that the media shapes and frames the processes and discourse (conversation) of political communication as well as the society in which that communication takes place. Mediatization is part of a paradigmatic shift in media and communication research. Following the concept of ‘mediation’, ‘mediatization’ has become the proper concept for capturing how processes of communication transform society, designating large-scale relationships»¹

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mediatization_(media) , 08.02.2019 [definition and orogon of word mediatization]

57

58

The Unifished through Lens of Mass Media Considering the importance and amount of mass media in society, its engagement with architecture is a very broad subject.

«Unfinished» Italy is about started works but never finished that, in addition to landscape and environmental damage, also produce economic damage. The count of this real waste of resources was provided by codacons that registered works and calculated the difference between 2013 and 2014. The investigation results are discomforting: in Italy there is «an abnormal growth of the unfinished works, whose number has reached 868» Bridges, roads and infrastructures of national interest, started and never finished, have thus produced «an immense waste of public money amounting to 4 billion euros».¹ The phenomenon of unfinished works, however, is absolutely transversal: it crosses Italy from the north to the south, in all regions of Italy, showing that waste has no political color or territorial differences.

In the last ten years the Incompiuto siciliano working group has carried out a survey on Italian public works 59

that have never been completed.

According to their studies, it would be 750 throughout the country, 350 only in Sicily. The diffusing phenomenon on mass media attracted a lot of attention and controversy which concluded with «the birth to a new architectural style: the unfinished», explain the artists of the collective Alterazioni video, Claudia D’Aita and Enrico Sgarbi. And they represent a testimony of the social and cultural context in which our daily life is immersed. «The unfinished works appear to us as places of a collective memory yet to be investigated. Born as ruins and produced by a compressed time, they are architectures that shape the landscape»², added D’Aita and Sgarbi. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of its foundation, its founders have launched a fundraising campaign to create a book, «Incompiuto The birth of a style», a journey through the ruins scattered throughout Italy.

«This process has been made possible thanks to an intricate network of productions, collaborations and interventions by Alterazioni video in a range of contexts: art spaces, universities, television, cinema, newspapers and a wide series of publications and catalogues»³

1. Cf. https://codacons.it/opereincompiute /, 09.02.2019 [Unfinished works: 4 billion waste] 2. Cf. https://www.internazionale. it/foto/2017/05/24/incompiutosiciliano/, 09.02.2019 3. Alterazioni video, Fosbury Architecture, Incompiuto. The birth of a style, Milano,2018, p.7

We could say that the mass media diffusion of the phenomenon in Italy helped to gain awareness from the public and authorities of the country, helped to give birth of a book by fundraising, and continuation of the survey with the help of social media.

City of Sports as Icon of Failure

1. Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005, p.68 2.Ivi, p.71

Since so much Italy and abroad read about the unfinished project in Rome, or unfinished architecture in general, the event itself became etched in the collective memory in an unforgettable way, as a trauma. «Monument, memorial, and icon are all connected by their prime place in our memory and nothing is so memorable, neurologists and psychologists argue, as a horrible, painful experience. If fuses neuronal clusters into repeated firing patterns»¹ The continuous, often transmission of the same message through the media creates the strange modern ritual of the profane society. «In global society the modern form of ritual is created by the media, not religious, repetition, hence the way it is re-presented here as the layered accumulation of text, headline and image. This meta-media is part analysis, part the art of amplification

[...] In other words, the building plus its reception over many months creates the necessary ritual»². Therefore, suddenly, there is no longer architecture, as most of people never visited the site or are interested in architecture, but becomes the unfolding media itself - the modern ritual.

Failures and ruins contain the promise of the unexpected. Since a buildings has passed to a status of a ruin, there are limitless possibilities for encounters with the weird, with imaginary, with peculiar things and this curious spaces allow wide scope for imaginative interpretation, unencumbered by the assumptions which weigh heavily and highly on encoded, regulated space.

All these years, therefore, City of Sports becomes a mass media Icon that society «loves to hate» because it’s wistful, it’s impressive, it’s shocking, it’s nostalgic it’s provocative. It’s about time, nature, mortality, disinvestment, waste, decay- people believe in trauma and failure as they do in nothing else.

Over the years the project of the City of Sport has attracted the interest of the media and public opinion, as well as the curiosity of the architectural world on the developments of the project by Santiago Calatrava becoming one the 60

most important subjects of mediatization.

The unfinished structure of Santiago Calatrava in Rome is considered absolutely unique. The reticular sailshaped roof that the Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti could have admired many times from the space is 75 meters high and to get it done, it took as much iron as in the Eiffel Tower.¹ For this gigantic monument to waste the taxpayers have so far spent 323 million, and to complete it another 426 would be needed which makes authorities think that it could never be completed.

Since the project was inseminated, the progression of works were recorded and related in mass media and television, and here are the steps communicated to citisens through the lenses of mass media: The initial project idea, born in May 2005, was to create a structure that the city lacked at that time. The project was the result of a Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Rome, the University of Tor Vergata (periphery of Rome), the C.O.N.I. (Italian National Olympic Committee) during the first mandate of the council of Walter Veltroni. The estimated cost 61

foreseen by the administration was € 60,000,000.

The land is owned by the Tor Vergata State University, but it does not necessarily guarantee that the entire intervention and its impressive structures are owned by the University itself but it is belonging certainty to the state, being constructed with public money.

From the first phase of the project there is a doubling of 120,000,000 euros foreseen for completion of the project: 50% financed by City of Rome and the other half with a special loan granted

by INAIL. The construction works started in February 2006, but at this point the construction of the project is dedicated for hosting 2009 Swimming World Championships that were to be held in Rome. For the management of the complex, from the design phase to the construction site phases is in charge the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and Angelo Balducci (an Italian public executive).

A further increase in costs took place between 2006 and 2007: without a real progression of the work, the costs doubled to reach € 240,000,000.

In September 2006, the Municipality of Rome, in view of the candidacy

1. Cf. https://www.corriere.it/ inchieste/, 10.02.2019

Unique architectural character

Independent closed shape

No context

Demolish

Temporary use

Finish Failed-Icon Icon as Landmark

cost 660

(mln euro)

660

600

540

510 480

420

360 360

300

240

240

180 180

120

0

2022

2020

ruin

2019

2018

proposals

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

construction site

2021

time

0

2004

Right: the contruction site phases.

Time and Cost

62

for the 2016 Olympics, evaluated the opportunity and the economic convenience to adapt the project to the Olympic standards, to increase the capacity of the sports hall up to 15,000 spectators. This request involved a considerable increase in the size of the building and an increase in costs up to 323 million euros.

In October 2008 Gianni Alemanno becomes mayor of Rome who decides to host the Swimming Championships at the Foro Italico given the long times of the construction site of City of Sports.

In 2009, after having already spent about 200,000,000 euros and announcing a further increase in costs up to 607,000,000 euros, work on the construction of the City of Sports is officially blocked.

In 2011, the probable candidacy of Rome for the 2020 Olympics sets in motion the works for the completion of the pavilions without, however, no date scheduled for the conclusion, considering however an expected 11 times the initial budget, that is 660.000.000 euro, of which almost 300,000,000 had already been spent.

At this point the private company Nec Group International, agree with the Campidoglio to pay between € 380 63

and € 500 million to complete the work, asking in exchange the management of sports facilities for 25 years and the construction of other commercial facilities. The government, however, say «no» to the candidacy of Rome for the 2020 Olympics.

In 2012 Alemanno announced that the complex will be completed thanks to the help of privates. But today the City of Rome is a provincial city and every year foreign international investments are only 200 million euro.

The greatest difficulty in attracting private investors, in reference to the current project of the City of Sport, lies in the fact that, the project functions, do not foresee an intense use of space, therefore a large profit , for a long-term investment.

Operations have not yet started by 2014. In the same year, the University of Tor Vergata proposes an expense of 60,000,000 euros for the completion of the so-called «sail» providing a change of use, then the construction of a large botanical garden of 130 hectares for the department of Natural Sciences (a record for the largest botanical garden in the world). According to this proposal, the second of the two pavilions would have maintained its original sports

1. Codacons [Coordination of associations for environmental protection and user] 2. Cf. https://roma.repubblica. it/cronaca/2014/10/13/news/, 10.02.2019 3. Cf. https://thetimemachine978. wordpress.com/2018/01/14/le-veledi-calatrava-simbolo-dello-sprecodi-denaro-pubblico/ , 10.02.2019 4. Cf. http://living.corriere.it/ 10.02.2019

function, integrated with a music facilities, and should have been completed with a sum of 426 million euros.

In October 2014, the Codacons¹ proposes its demolition because of the damage to the environment and to the community,² considered as being symbol of inadequacy of the political class and waste of public resources.

On 8 January 2016 a meeting with Calatrava gives birth to the idea of concluding the work of the City of Sport, to strengthen the possibility of candidacy for the 2024 Olympics, but the actual mayor of Rome is saying NO to this proposal.

The main problem and the main source of the difficulty of this pharaonic work lies in the fact that it has now arrived in a «cul de sac», in which, everything is blocked. The completion of the envisaged structures would include the use of resources currently unavailable, but leaving the work to its state of abandonment would certainly meet the public indignation in having thrown more than 200 million of public money, while the Codacons proposal to demolish the entire structure would create environmental and landscape pollution, and it would certainly not a

a free choice. The most appropriate hypothesis would perhaps be the refunctionalization of the structure, maintaining most of the existing constructed parts. The bigness of the project, bad management and lack of definition of the various actors has generated a long confused process and a big waste of resources.

The sails of Calatrava symbol of the waste of public money³ or the queen of the unfinished.4 Therefore the project became a controversial subject known and criticized in mass media, it became an icon of failure which inspired some movie directors to choose it as a film location.

Cosimo Gomez in his film «Brutti e Cattivi» focused on the raids of four freaks mad and marginalized.

Michael Bay in «6 underground» is an upcoming American action film directed written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The film stars Ryan Reynolds, Mélanie Laurent, Dave Franco, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Adria Arjona, Corey Hawkins, and Ben Hardy.

Stefano Sollimai in «Suburra» neo-noir mafia crime film directed by Stefano Sollima, based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Carlo Bonini.

64

65

Above: https://www.radiotimes.com/ news/2017-10-05/suburra-netflixlocation-guide/, 10.02.2019 [photo from the film «Suburra» by Stefano Sollimai]

Above: https://www.ilmamilio.it/c/ comuni/, 10.02.2019 [photo of the film set in «6 underground» by Michael Bay]

66

3.2 The Unfinished as form of Art

«Unfinished buildings have the beauty of this which could have been. Of this which is not yet there. Of this which might be one day.»¹

1. Cf. Marc Augé, Le temps en ruines, the University of Michigan, 2003

1. Cf. Handa, Rumiko, Experiencing the Architecture of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent, University of Nebraska-Lincoln , 2015, p.1

This chapter will examine how unfinished, incomplete, imperfect, and impermanent pieces of artwork engage people in a manner that demonstrates their ontological significance. The study is intended as a first step toward critiquing the long-held assumption about the perfection, completeness, and permanence of a work of art and constructing an alternative paradigm of aesthetics and ethics.ยน The concept of unfinished or incomplete represents equivalent images, significant elements of similar experience, even if in some aspects profoundly different.

The unfinished as a concept alluring infinity is a recent concept in history of Western art, which usually goes back to Michelangelo. The unfinished state of a work of art, be it in paintings, literature, photography, music or cinematography is a component that often becomes central in the artistic research Sometimes we start from the desire, more or less expressed, to leave the work incomplete, not because we lack the ability to complete it but because leaving something in an unfinished state means to free the work itself from imposed meanings and absolute answers, it means leaving the possibility of the observer to complete, to imagine,

add meanings, to support ambiguity.

A state that opens up to immense possibilities, transforming itself into infinity. In analyzing the relationship between unfinished and art, must be paid attention to the subtle difference between the concepts of unfinished (non finito) and incomplete (non terminato). The comparison is a sort of transposition of the dialectic between art and reality, between work and artefact. The unfinished concerns art, incomplete, usually, a public work.

Most important difference is that the first one comes from the sublime desire of the artist, whose unfinished work becomes infinite thanks to the constant correlation between idea and matter, while the second is the result of stupidity and political corruption.

One could argue that the incomplete is simply a temporary condition as a way to neutrally define any architectural or engineering constructions. Yet even if the incomplete is transformed into a negative symbol, indisputable from the social and political point of view, a more refined look can come to consider the incomplete work as an architectural ruin and to project it into the future by attributing to it melancholy and nobility.

The unfinished works express the beauty 68

of what could have been, of what does not yet exist. Of what maybe one day will be there.¹ The relationship between unfinished and art is by no means an important question. It is interesting to understand how this phenomenon manages to relate to other disciplines. Its nature, being incomplete in form, unfinished in being, leads to any kind of experimentation, from art to cinema, from photography to installations. Through a process of abstraction, unfinished works are loaded with a poetic value, transforming itself into a material that can be interpreted, manipulated, open to the future.

Literature Many famous authors have left work incomplete. Some of this works have been published posthumously, either in their incomplete state or after being finished by another person. Novels can remain unfinished because the author always rewrites the story. Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger was written in three different versions over a period of 20 years, none of which were completed. Twain biographer and literary executor Albert Paine combined the stories and published his version six years after Twain’s death.² 69

Similarly, J. R. R. Tolkien continuously rewrote The Silmarillion throughout his lifetime; a definitive version was still uncompiled at the time of his death, with some sections very fragmented.

Geoffrey Chaucer never completed The Canterbury Tales to the extensive length that he originally intended.

Therefore the unfinished is, of course, something which tells us about the history of a work of art’s creation, unfinished works are pieces of biographical information.

Music Many unfinished symphonies have been pieced together from these original manuscripts by other composers, after the original author’s death, with some remaining incomplete until many decades later. One of the most famous examples of unfinished musical compositions is Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, or as it is more commonly known, The Unfinished Symphony.³ Another famous unfinished classical piece is Mozart’s Requiem, famous in part because of the numerous myths and legends that surround its creation and in part because of Mozart’s prestige. At the time of his death, Mozart had fully orchestrated only the

1. Cf. Delle Monache P. Meneguzzo M., p.105 2. https://web.archive.org/ web/20040918015059/http://www. geocities.com/, 10.02.2019

Right: Michelangelo’s unfinished Manchester Madonna gives an insight into the painter’s methods

70

first movement, leaving nine further movements in varying states of completion. Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of Fugue, which was broken off abruptly during Contrapunctus XIV, probably shortly before the death of the composer, was first published in the mid 18th century. Many reconstructions have been written.¹ Painting and Sculpture Instead of completing another artist’s masterpiece, particularly when many years have passed, unfinished works frequently inspire others to create their own version. Michelangelo left several unfinished sculptures and paintings, with sketches and partially completed paintings inspiring others.² The Manchester Madonna is one the his unfinished religious painting and dates to around 1497. It is also sometimes referred to as The Virgin and Child with St John and Angels.3 Photography Frameworks is the culmination of photographer Sam Laughlin’s survey of the «ruins of modernity» across Spain, Italy and the UK. The photographs of unfinished, incomplete buildings taken in the dark of night suggest parallels 71

to architectural techniques throughout history dating as far back as Ancient Greece. The ruins serve as symbols of transience and the cyclical decline of economy and society. The title Frameworks is fitting for Laughlin’s series. «It refers to the structures as blank canvases that could at one point be filled in with a program and human activity. The question is whether their development will ever continue or whether the concrete compositions will be reduced to a pile of construction material again. If progress will pick up again, the canvases might be colored in differently from how they were planned, open to a variety of possibilities. And what if you knew that these structures were on their way to become the «landscapes» of the contemporary city, would they still be as captivating?»4 Architecture Using his building cuts as his leitmotif, Matta-Clark tried to open a breach in the American capitalist system of the decade by inviting people to think about concepts such as private property, speculation, privacy, poverty, abandonment or isolation. «The way that Matta-Clark transformed real buildings into real scale models by

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Unfinished_creative_work, 10.02.2019 2. Lane, Jim, A Painter’s Legacy, 1999, 10.02.2019 3. http://www.michelangelo.net/ manchester-madonna/, 10.02.2019 4. https://failedarchitecture. com/photo-essay-frameworks/, 10.02.2019

Left: Sam Laughlin, Frameworks [All photographs are courtesy of Sam Laughlin]

72

cutting its abandoned structures is at least, provocative, because he was reverting the process of our lineal way of thinking by using the power of representation. He was clearly interested in the built environment with all its complexity and contradictions, not just in the buildings that he could artfully cut apart. This contradictions can also be understood as a kind of architectural dissidence, when practising what he called «Anarchitecture»»¹ Film An interesting documentary film produced by the Italian-French director Benoit Felici: Unfinished Italy. The film shows a politics that create spaces, draws a historical time, an epoch, therefore an ethics. Shows the conflictual dynamics and their underlying truth.4 Unfinished Italy relates the work of artists and examine interesting events, like the drama of the architect who designed an Olympic swimming pool by doing wrong calculations. The documentary tells the story of the unfinished buildings in a limbo between the perfection and the nothingness, artifacts left halfway, fallen into disrepair before they were ever used 73

and today are an integral part of the Italian architectural landscape.

Unfinished Italy proposes a study of the potential value of unfinished buildings in Italy and of the man’s ability to adapt to them. These ruins, whose future has already passed and whose present seems an eternity, act as an invitation to meditate on time. The director, interviewed during the Festival Visioni di Archivio, talked about his work considering it as an opening towards reality and experimentation3 Fashion Virgil Abloh is an artist, architect, engineer, creative director, and designer.

For has carried on his aesthetic for Pre-Fall collection at Off-White, he applied his passion for the incomplete to clothes themselves. And the Italian term Incompiuto is printed on the collection clothes and bags. Virgil Abloh has a passion for works in progress. He said, “Humans are often obsessed with erasing their impact or trying to make something look flawless, like a beautifully laid wood floor or a perfectly cylindrical piece of pottery.

I’ve always been one for things that have evidence of the human.” Virgil Abloh is new Men’s Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton. 5

1. https://dprbcn.wordpress. com/2012/01/26/gordon-mattaclark/[Deconstructing Reality | Gordon Matta-Clark], 10.02.2019 2. http://www.unfinished-italy.com/ 3. Ibid 4. Cf. Alberto Tomasino, (In) Compiuto(thesis) , University of Palermo , 2016, p.76 5. https://www.vogue.com/article/ off-white-menswear-pre-fall-2019, 10.02.2019

Right: Gordon Matta-Clark, Conical Intersect, 1975. [Š Gordon MattaClark y David Zwirner, New York]

74

75

Right: capture from documentary film Unfinished Italy[http://www. unfinished-italy.com/]

Right: Off-White™’s Pre Fall 2019 Imagery by Virgil Abloh [photo credits to Off-White™]

76

3.3 Incompiuto.

The birth of a Style

«INCOMPIUTO: The Birth of a Style is the first and only study – the result of ten years of fieldwork – of a phenomenon frequently discussed in our country and yet still not fully acknowledged: the nationwide presence of buildings and infrastructures of which the implementation has never been completed.

The scope of this phenomenon, its spread across the territory and its incredible architectural peculiarities together make the Incompiuto the most prominent Italian architectural style since WWII.»¹

1. https://www.humboldtbooks. com/en/book/incompiuto-la-nascitadi-uno-stile-the-birth-of-a-style, 05.03.2019

Right: Alterazioni Video and Fosbury Architecture Italia Incompiuta, 2018 [Rome is the capital of the Unfinished]

78

One of the exemplary cases of conversion of the incomplete into art is the work Incompiuto. The birth of a style proposed by Alterazioni Video and Fosbury Architecture, capable of giving a new meaning, a new symbolic value to the unfinished works.

It also intends to be a judgmental tool that reflects a complex urban and social situation of its moment, leaving a solid evidence of political mismanagement, demographic movements, different urban plans and their consequences. The mapping of Incompiuto is in constant change: it will expand in case of the emergence of new urban failures, which must be immediately annexed; and decrease whenever effective solutions are taken to prevent paralysis.

Italy is one of the countries where the practice of architecture has been most affected by the economic crisis.

The lack of reflection over whether these projects were necessary or valid resulted in the subsequent abandonment of many buildings when their completion or maintenance was discovered not to be economically viable. Their appearance throughout italian territories has generated a collection of unfinished buildings where the factor of time was eliminated from 79

the formula for making architecture.

The group of artists has carried out an overturning operation, trying to transform what is ugly into beauty, failure into oportunity, trying to see in the incomplete a new logic, a historical value and above all a possibility for the future. Incompiuto Siciliano is defined almost in a provocative way, the most important and widespread architectural style of the Italian territory after WWII. «It was in 2007 when, in collaboration with Claudia D’Aita and Enrico Sgarbi, they began the mapping of the phenomenon, publishing the first list online of incomplete worls in Italy. And it was on the basis of the quantity of works an on the quality of their incompletion that Alterazioni Video in 2008 wrote the Manifesto dell’Incompiuto Siciliano, outlining the founding elements of the leading architectural style in post war Italy.

The Incompiuto was initially Siciliano because it was in Sicily- in many ways more Italian that Italy itself - that the style achieved the height of its expression and diffusion, but working their way up the peninsula, the phenomenon took on a national character and relevance.»1 The project continues to grow progressively, and if

1. Alterazioni Video and Fosbury Architecture, Incompiuto. The birth of a Style, Milano, 2018, p.10

1. Ivi, p. 11 2. Ivi, p.13-24

at the beginning the main goal was to bring to light all this forgotten structures and create awareness, now it has the intent to include the word «incompiuto» in the Italian dictionary.

«Ultimately, this volume helps us perhaps to understand how the unfinished works offer proof that humankind, although imperfect, has evolved; that for the first time in history, we have touched rock bottom, producing ruins that testify this: the style that recounts the price of social peace, paid for by collusion and the exchange of favors, of votes. However, in actual fact we know full well that an asymmetric war has been fought, that shots have been fired, that there have been deaths, factions, land conquered and others confiscated.»1 The public works, or private works with public participation, all have the same style, and we should rethink their future.

Should we demolish them, should we reconvert the unfinished works for people’s fruition, or leave how they are right now, all this are hypothesis and topics open to discussion. In case we leave the topic untreated, then we will have to talk in terms of life span of the concrete. Thus, it might be a good idea to begin to accept them, which finally

can become a good start point for innovative architectural developments.

Hopefully this project will direct attention to processes more than results in an attempt to discover design strategies generated by an optimistic view of the constructed environment.

The Incompiuto Manifesto «I. The Incompiuto has been the leading architectural style in Italy since world war II II. The incompiuto is based on its own ethics and aesthetics.

III. The incompiuto resolves the tension between form and purpose. It’s lack of purpose becomes a work of art.

IV. Unfinished works are contemporary ruins generated by the creative enthusiasm of liberalism V. The incompiuto redefines the Italian landscape.

VI. Nature dialogues with the works of the Incompiuto, taking back control of places VII. Reinforced concrete provides the very building blocks of the Incompiuto.

VIII. The Incompiuto gathers together places of contemplation and thought IX. The Incompiuto is both a symbol of political power and of artistic sensitivity»2 80

Regions

Nr. of unfinished works Abruzzi................................................................................................................... 42 Basilicata .............................................................................................................. 21 Calabria.................................................................................................................. 58 Campania................................................................................................................ 54 Emilia-Romagna..................................................................................................... 15 Friuli Venezia Giulia............................................................................................... 5 Lazio....................................................................................................................... 45 Liguria.................................................................................................................... 9 Lombardy................................................................................................................ 38 Marche.................................................................................................................... 10 Molise..................................................................................................................... 13 Piedmont................................................................................................................. 15 Apulia..................................................................................................................... 69 Sardinia................................................................................................................... 71 Sicily....................................................................................................................... 163 Tusany..................................................................................................................... 34 Trentino-Alto Adige............................................................................................... 5 Umbria.................................................................................................................... 11 Valle d’Aosta.......................................................................................................... 3 Veneto..................................................................................................................... 15 Total [to be continued]........................................................................................... 696

81

Localised Works [Alterazioni Video and Fosbury Architecture, Incompiuto. The birth of a Style, Milano, 2018, p.246]

Right: Astronave madre, 2008, Alterazioni Video [Digital collgae of maps, sections and views of the unfinished works of Giarre]

82

3.4 The Potential of the Unfinished

We live in a moment where the speed of changes is very high, so high that we barely can manage it, and as a result we have a huge number of Unfinished works. The main potential of the Unfinished is to embrace the change, let the work be in continuous ÂŤwork in progress...Âť

84

From quantified and recognizable damage to potential to exploit.

What really should be considered as unfinished is the story of this phenomenon. Years of waste, abandonment, wasted resources and moral traumas, the unfinished must be seen as an error to be repaired, an open story with an unpredictable ending, trying to abandon the stereotypes, the melancholic illusions. The unfinished works are an open field, spaces in tension, abandoned places, already born as ruins, structures that require new transformations. The potential that hides behind the unfinished works is hidden precisely in their illusory character, in their inherent contraposition, memory of a never existed past and the hope of an unrealizable future. It is necessary to apply a realistic view to the potential that these buildings have, considering them as an investment already started, resources in suspension that probably even with a minimum intervention, could acquire a [in]completed form.

For years, monitoring and reporting of cases of uncontrolled use of land, wasted resources and abandoned places have been active. However, monitoring and reporting are only the first step in a mechanism that still really needs to 85

be better activated. It is a matter of starting a radical change in the thematic vision, recognizing that the unfinished works are an inevitably new potential, objects ready to receive transformations, new roles and meanings. The concept of ÂŤno sprawlÂť1, about stopping the uncontrolled development of soil, is widespread. Exploiting already compromised places, already built structures, therefore, means avoiding expansions in other intact places.

It is precisely the lack of a determinate sense of incomplete buildings to generate new fields of reading spaces, offering a freedom of reinterpretation.

This lack, however, represents an opportunity, a resource to be structured in an uncertain time. The places generated by the unfinished works are unexpected, places often without rules, but able to generate authentic reflections, innovative visions. Sudden changes in economic, social and ecological order can cause unexpected changes in scenarios, create new meanings, new opportunities. The interpretation of the incomplete does not have to bring the object back to its original function but in trying to figure out if there is another reinterpretation in this new conduit. Designing with

1. refers to the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning.

1. Cf. Alberto Tomasino, (In) Compiuto(thesis) , University of Palermo , 2016, p.102

unfinished works means recognizing a new role it could take in architecture, a new re-consecration and maximization of its potential. It is a matter of operating on those places that allude to the possibility of change, spaces that need responsible and measured human intervention. Parasitic actions on unfinished works that behave like parasites toward the territory that hosts them. Actions able to detect new dynamics, new connections, new uses.

It is not about to recover the object, to read it as a problem, but to grasp the logic exulting from the mechanisms of the process that has expelled it. The gap can be seen as a refuge of diversity.

Putting them on hold means admitting the precariousness of a system, looking for the limits that it presents in terms of articulation and resources, then adopting strategies that are based on recycling as an operational practice. It is not simply a matter of designing forms of reuse, but of creating experiential ones that invents meanings, stories, modulating and articulate. Designing with waste involves reading the project itself as a process. The implicit decontextualization of alienation opens and amplifies the connotation of objects, of architectures, amplifying the

meanings of the single object, against the univocal reading resulting from suppressions, simplifications or selection. An alienated object or architecture imposes a change of meaning to the context in which they insist, also subjected to new significance.

In order to activate the potenial of the incomplete, it is necessary to change the perspective of estrangement, to seek out and detect new meanings, to the work itself, to the context in which it insists.

These are defined objectives that must inspire to find their application, through a definite design project.1 Monitoring Monitoring becomes an indispensable solution because the phenomenon of unfinished has now become an wide phenomenon numbers that can be managed only by carrying out operations of mapping and cataloging.

Monitoring means not only mapping and cataloging, it means digging more profound, understanding how and why we came to this point to avoid further similar development.

Often we find ourselves in the case of small administrations that decide not to publish the incomplete works to reject 86

the accusations of the media, making the action of monitoring difficult Monitoring should scan territories and structure them by some specific criteria which will be used for further decisions about the future of the buildings.

1. Economic / Legal Failure. Those territories without planning permission, whose permission has been cut off or stopped. Construction works or urban plans under a legal process because of corruption. Plots of land or building works without the economic feasibility to be taken in the agreed deadline.

2. Ecological Failure. Land declared as an ecological or environmental disaster.

Burned lands, poisoned or harmed in some way with the aim of a possible redesignation. Any natural soil where any illegal activity may lead into the loss of animal and plant life.

3. Social Failure. Uninhabited or abandoned territories two to a migratory movement from rural to urban cities.

Overpopulated territories with some risks and lacking of resources or unhygienic conditions. Every illegal settlement with permanent population.

4. Urban Failure. Developed territories with a lack of adaptation to their surroundings. that have been proved to be unsustainable in the long term and have no use nowadays.1 87

1. National awarness. Mapping

2. Monitoring. Categorize failures economic urban ecologic technical social

3. Regional detailed mapping

4. Open debate. Intervention proposals demolish finish temporary use reuse

1. Cf. http://unfinished.es/en/ propuesta/united-territories-offailand/, 12.02.2019

1. Legambiente is an Italian environmentalist association 2. Cf. http://www.corrieredisciacca. it/cancellato-lecomostro-di-scaladei-turchi/, 10.02.2019

Demolish The demolition is an honest but also expensive solution, in monetary terms and also from an administrative and decisional point of view. Building demolition is one the biggest contributors to environmental pollution.

The illogic construction of useless infrastructures is a huge damage to the environment. Demolish means to give a moral slap to those who have thrown millions on useless works, and means above all to restore the dignity and color to the landscapes that for years have been occupied by poured concrete. Demolishing is not a simple solution, because a compromised place by an incomplete work will remain compromised even after the abatement.

It is difficult to restore the initial state of a place or imagine a better future from zero. Thus the demolition must be decided as the ultimate solution, it is always necessary to evaluate improvement operations and reuse that can create regeneration for the incomplete building and the area in which it is inserted. We must demolish structures which compromise the landscape, in cases where it is necessary to recover the error made by man and restore natural places.

Scala dei Turchi- Realmonte The environmental disaster of the Scala dei Turchi in Realmonte was a cement giant built in 1989 on the magnificent white marl cliffs of Realmonte. The project set up by a group of entrepreneurs was intended to be a luxury hotel complex. The first complaints were presented by ÂŤLegambienteÂť1 as early as 1990 and in the following years the works were blocked, then a judicial inquiry that culminated with the arrest of several former directors.

The various events that led to the demolishing of the building were completed after more than twenty years, in which the skeleton has compromised one of the most beautiful landscapes of the southern coast of Sicily. The demolishing of the skeleton becomes the symbol of many years of battle of interests. But the regional president of Legambiente considers it as a victory towards the natural landscape and towards society and thinks it is a symptom of a culture that is changing.

The abatement of the incomplete and abusive structure has become the symbol of the defense of natural and landscape heritage of Italian territories.2 88

89

Left: The skeleton of the incomplete Scala dei Turchi of Realmonte

1. Rietveld Ronald, Rietveld Erik, Vacancy Studies.

Experiments&Strategic interventions in architecture, Netherland, 2014, p.17

Temporary use It is often thought that the impact of temporary use is ephemeral. But when temporary use successfully contributes to a well functioning public domain, several users might then move on to another temporarily vacant building.

«When vacancy is dealt with in this way, we refer to it as a «sequential temporariness»: a series of periods of temporary use develops that, together, can have a considerable impact in the long term. It can result in a flourishing creative ecology and create favorable location for talented individuals from different disciplines to establish themselves.» In September 2011, the Sandberg Instituut started the Studio Vacant NL two year Master program directed by architect Ronald Rietveld and philosopher Erik Rietveld, in which participants from different fields are trained in temporary use of vacant buildings and sites. Which means ways of non traditional forms of designing, through new insights and tools, of using vacant buildings in their interim period until the building will be restored or demolished. They consider that the temporary and experimental use of buildings can provide valuable ideas for their future functions.

The Secret Operation 610, RAAF RAAF was asked to design a project for an undefined target group for use at Shelter 610, a hangar at the former Sousterberg military airbase that had housed US fighter aircraft in the past.

From the outset of this project, RAAF’s ambition was to use the potential of vacancy for innovation. There was a long runway, 45 meters wide and 3 km long, completely deserted still with a secretive Cold War air about it. The runaway and the war shelter called Shelter 610 have qualities not found anywhere else and the idea was to give it new meanings in the 21 century. The project consists in a mobile sculptural object whose dimensions were decided in confront with the Shelter 610 as a space for researchers.

Using Shelter 610 as its base, Secret Operation 610 functions as a catalyst fr the development of the shelter park.

The mobile workspace creates new possibilities for the use of the airbase, runway and the vacant Shelter 610. The mobile sculpture forms the home base for ten people to work in and it has been made to be mobile, so that any possible spot on the airbase can suddenly be transformed into a research location with clean and intelligent technology.

90

91

Left: Secret Operation 610, Studio Frank Havermans + RAAAF [credits Michiel de Cleene] Right: Ibid. interior

92

Reuse Architectural reuse processes include adaptive reuse, conservative disassembly, and reusing salvaged materials. This definition is broad and inclusive permitting many different interpretations; however, the underlying objective is that architectural reuse be understood as an evolutionary process occurring over time. Adaptive reuse is the process of changing a building’s function to accommodate the changing needs of its users. Adaptive reuse revises the function of a building while preserving the integrity of architectural space. In order for a building to accommodate change, it must have a functional value as well as a commodity value. Buildings that offer an open arrangement of spaces and a flexible structural framework have the best potential for reuse.1 The purpose of Reuse is to prevent waste, serve the public, and conduct a successful life span. Reusing in the field of unfinished means giving new stimuli, new forms of expression to contemporary architecture.

It means being able to read the charm of the incomplete, which through the design can renew itself, becoming [un]finished again, completing itself step by step.

93

Scalo di San Cristoforo by Studio Albori «The project concerns the reutilization of the skeleton of a construction, one of those unfinished and abandoned structures that the media enjoys «ecomonsters» and which are normally demolished with dynamite. The intention was to use every single part of this large discarded construction, avoiding any demolition, exploiting its almost pastoral position, sufficiently far from the railway line, using it as a framework for a group of houses of different kinds, from social housing to residences on the open market - within which can also be found workshops, a small nursery, a bar-trattoria, a hostel, a small theatre and a shop for the sale, hire and repair of bicycles.

The building strategy is planned around the possibilities of re-using waste materials, starting from the re-use of the structure itself, and continuing with waste materials coming from both the construction process and elsewhere, in the perspective of a sober use of construction and energy resources.

The building process can function as a workshop for all those who already work in the fields, reflecting the multiplicity and possible future progressive modifications.»2

1. http://www.umich.edu/~nppcpub/ resources/compendia/ARCHpdfs/ ARCHr&rC.pdf [Stewart Brand, Architectural Reuse], 10.02.2019 2. Studio Albori, Housing Italy, Domestication of an eco-moster, 2008 [Decription of the project for Venice Biennale 11] Right: Domestication of an ecomoster project by Studio Albori

94

Incremental reuse Montreal Biosphere by Buckminster Fuller Designed by noted American architect, and inventor Buckminster Fuller, the Biosphere situated in Parc Jean-Drapeau has an interesting story of incremental reuse changing its function and architectural morphology. The geodesic dome structure, a design popularized by Fuller, was commissioned by the United States government as the country’s contribution to the 1967 World Fair Exposition (Expo 67) in Montreal, to be America’s pavilion for the event.

After Expo 67, the intention was to dismantle the dome, but due to budget limitations, the dome’s structure was secured and remained—becoming a key feature of Montreal’s cityscape.

For the following nine years, the sphere remained open to the public.1 In 1976 there was fire accident that caused the acrylic covering of the sphere to catch on fire and remained uncovered from now on. It was closed for 15 years. In 1990 a management plan for the Parc Jean-Drapeau is approved, transform the Biosphère into a site devoted to environment and for studying water and the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence ecosystem. Under this agreement, 95

Environment Canada takes full responsibility for the project’s mission, museological direction and building operations for 25 years. In 1992 Montréal architect Éric Gauthier wins an architectural competition and is commissioned to redesign the Biosphère’s interior structure in keeping with its original design. In 1998 the ice storm that struck Quebec seriously damages the Biosphere, which closes for more than five months. The theme of this year is the International Year of Oceans. In 1999 the Biosphere makes an agreement that leads to the development and implementation of joint projects aimed at increasing public awareness of water protection in Canada. In 2005 the Biosphere marks ten years of environmental education and celebrates by renewing its public spaces, youth programs, new exhibitions aimed at visitors ages 5 to 17 and their families.

In 2007, the mission of the Biosphere expanded into being a more broadly themed environmental museum, with various exhibits to explore different issues connected to ecosystems and sustainability. In 2010 the Biosphere inaugurates two green roofs and the indoor garden and also launches two temporary exhibitions.2

1. Cf. https://theculturetrip.com/ north-america/canada/quebec/ articles/, 10.02.2019 2. https://www.canada.ca/en/ environment-climate-change/ services/biosphere/about/history. html, 10.02.2019

96

97

IV. Project context

4.2 Agricultural Tor Vergata

Regarding the aesthetic aspect of the territory and the innovative evaluation of the visual qualities of the agricultural landscape, they have determined an overall recognition that deserve protection.

Future aimed restoration should acknowledge the changing and unpredictable environment of the future, assume the dynamic nature of ecological communities with multiple trajectories, and connect landscape elements for improving ecosystem functions and structures. The analyzed area represents the synthesis of a palimpsest that took place during the centuries and are even today elements of absolute value.

99

1. The municipi of Rome. Tor Vergata is situated at confines betweeen VI and VII municipio

1. The Ager Romanus (literally, «the field of Rome»’) is the geographical rural area (part plains, part hilly) that surrounds the city of Rome.

2. Ibid

Tor Vergata is situated in the southeastern sector of the Roman suburb, also known as University area.

This territory has a hilly morphology characterizedby the succession of wide elongated water ditches in the southeast /northwest direction, determined by the evolution of the hydrographic network which in this part of the Roman periphery - it conveys the waters coming from the Albani Hills partly towards the Tiber, partly towards the Aniene. In a study dating back to about twenty years ago, were analysed characteristics of the agricultural landscape, from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century, of the southeastern territory. This survey revealed the maintaining, over the period of time the agricultural archaic scheme that is the cultivation every year one third of the land, leaving the remaining two thirds at rest, possibly destined for winter grazing of transhumance flocks. Around the middle of the seventeenth century the plans of the Catasto Alessandrino one cartographic tool of fundamental importance for the purposes of reconstruction historical-topographies indicate, for example, that most of the territory consisted of arable and working land. For the second half of the

eighteenth century it is instead the Catasto Annonario(1783) to provide useful information on the land use of Ager Romanus1 and although little more than a century has passed after the Catasto Alessandrino, do not appear in our area, substantial differences in the agricultural structure.

For the first decades of the nineteenth century,we have an important cartographic new source which allows to achieve a reconstruction of the territory’s structure from the point of view of both agricultural and the anthropic landscape and also geographic extremely detailed: this source is the Catasto Gregoriano. This is the first geometric-particle cadaster created with homogeneous criteria for the entire Pio VII State.2 The accuracy of the detail, the very large scale at which were elevated the maps, the amount of information contained in them - ranging from the distribution on the territory of human settlements (cities, towns, rural agglomerations, individual buildings, farmhouses and barns, chapels and oratories; Roman ruins and medieval towers) to the dense interweaving of the national, municipal, and private streets; from the drawing of the hydrographic network to the denomination of the 100

natural water ditches project site

101

1. Tor Vergata hydrological system, 2018 [natural ditches are generating the development of built environment and land use]

1. Cf. Adriano Ruggeri-Ornello Colandrea, Fra Tor Vergata e i castelli romani: uso del suolo fra ottocento e contemporaneo, Uniroma,2016, 2. Cf. Ivi.

districts and the use of land - make the Catasto Gregoriano a precious source and an irreplaceable research tool for reconstructing the precise layout of a territory in the early nineteenth century, which no other type source could allow.

We can see all elements buildings, roads, water ditches, administrative boundaries as well as the land use info related to the territory between the university complex of Tor Vergata and the village of Frascati. Firstly, we find that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the area under examination was part of northwestern Ager Romanus.1 The river network system is one of the geomorphological aspects of the territory which can be easily observed from the maps of the cadaster Catasto Gregoriano. Fig. 1 shows all the watercourses with the names they had in 1819, in some cases different from those of today, however, some ditches do not appear on the map but their presence can be deduced, for example, to the east of the Acqua Cetosa ditch, the narrow and long strip identifies the route of the ditch Botte di Luciano. The agricultural fields taken into consideration were the following: arable land and pastures, meadows and «aquatic» meadows, Among the specialized tree crops:

vineyards, olive groves, alternating vineyards to olive crops; closely related to viticulture were the reed beds, pometes, orchards, and some vegetable gardens. Then there are the coppices, that were also served «as coal». Are present more of «strong woods», trees with dark, hard and resistant wood such as oaks, elms, ash trees.So this is how the agricultural landscape presented itself in that area in the first decades of the nineteenth century.

In the region of Frascati the agricultural landscape is characterized by a greater variability, as consequence of the more pushed fragmentation land which has already been mentioned: arable land alternates with olive groves - with all the intermediate combinations. It is found in some areas of the outskirt of Frascati also vineyards, not far away from which are found the reeds, located along the watercourses, as it is the vegetation that prefers wet environments. In the Agro Romano the only existing settlement structures were functional, directional centers connected to the agricultural management, sometimes isolated or in groups of two, often with fountains nearby, such as the i casali del Quadrato, o Sant’Andrea, of Gregna, of Casalotto or Ciampino, ecc.2 102

Fig.1

arable lands pasture&arable lands

vineyard cedar forest meadowland vegetable gardens olive groves aquatic meadow

103

Fig.1: Reconstruction of land based on of Catasto Gregoriano 1819, University of Rome, Tor Vergata Fig. 2: Above: reconstruction of land use based on the LG.M cartography and GAI flight photo interpretation, 1955 Fig.3:Below: reconstruction of land use on the basis of the regional technical map, 1990

Fig.2

developing areas water ditches olive groves municipal boundaries productive urban areas arable land vineyards mix use areas urban residential areas cemeteries historic villas&gardens city center

Fig.3

urban productive areas arable land developing areas vineyards urban residential areas mixed use areas olive groves historic villas&gardens city center

104

we also have several houses with a court, often for the use of vineyard like those in San Marco and Valle Santa Croce, some houses defined as «of property» and some «holiday homes».

To conclude the anthropological aspect of the area, we can not omit the Roman ruins and the medieval towers, two of the salient elements that have characterized the landscape of the Roman peripheries until the middle of twentieth century, today deeply altered and irreparably compromised. Among the first the maps of the Catasto are reported Tor di Mezzavia, recently restored by IKEA, the ruins named Grote Centroni, Grote Sbalarzate and Grote Piattelle, grandiose ruins of suburban villas from the Imperial age.

The methodologies adopted for the elaboration of the maps following those from 1819 they were also quite complex, regarding the main systems such as urbanization, agriculture and the naturalistic-vegetational aspect.

The production areas have been identified and perimetrated by analyzing individual industrial buildings, the boundaries of the properties and the annexes, as the quantity of these buildings reach wide surfaces. For the agricultural crops and the natural 105

vegetational categories it has been provided a reading of the territory, and a consequent cartographic representation, after a careful and accurate photointerpretation of their perimeters, making coincide with the morphological and/or anthropogenic elements (watercourses, ridges, roads, farm divisions). Also the perimeters of the different agricultural crops have been made to coincide with morphological features and artificial structures of the terrain such as slopes, embankments, walls, ditches and hedges, all elements that determine the clear separation between agricultural units destined for different crops.1 The agricultural areas, have been distinguished by type of crop, if the plant types were evident, and in any case predominant. The reference are the cultivation of one type parcels and precisely the vineyard areas, with orchards, olive groves and areas with dry and irrigated arable land. For areas where there is no prevailing cultivation, the term «mixed crops» is used. These are the areas where there are vineyards alternated with olive groves, arable land with rows of trees, isolated trees, and so on. In all these cases have been given more importance to tree crops than

1. Cf. Adriano Ruggeri-Ornello Colandrea, Fra Tor Vergata e i castelli romani: uso del suolo fra ottocento e contemporaneo, Uniroma,2016,

herbaceous crops, as more durable over time and therefore less susceptible to seasonal variations.

1. Cf. Ivi.

The territory after the second world war period.

In drawing up this map (fig.2) all the elements characterizing the settlements have been highlighted generically in their areal development, without going into further details, because private buildings have become very numerous was not possible to highlight the different types of farmhouses or productive buildings, however, remain historic villas, gardens and the cemeteries. Near the Tuscolana and Anagnina streets areas classified as productive, were in reality farmhouses.

It observable also a considerable land fragmentation and an alternation of crops. The agricultural crops maintain large extensions as arable land in Tor Vergata, favored by a plain land, while the hilly areas are covered by vineyards which, compared to previous decades, have greatly expanded. The areas around Frascati are instead affected by cultivation with olive groves. The wooded areas are almost completely gone and did increase riparian vegetation along watercourses.

The territory today (map 1990) The urban built environment become more and more extensive, have now acquired connotations of centralities with considerable density and size, especially along the main communication routes. Parallel to the A1 highway and the Romanina settlement, there is a large production area for advanced services and commercial services. The original Tor Vergata area is actually located further east, this area is now identified as Tor Vergata University main area. The settlement of the new university city has played a role of redevelopment of the entire area, previously considered as a desolate village, while currently it is being proposed as a center of high-tech services. The area looks today very fragmented by a continuous alternation of crops lands and inhabited settlements.

At the agricultural level, most of the existing crops in the territory of Frascati are made up of olive groves, presence of arable land and vineyards. There are some green areas, a symptom of a naturalization of areas. This research has helped to recognize the agrarian landscape, as a document of local history and culture which requires conservation.1 106

4.2 Reasearch Area &University of Tor Vergata

The University of Rome «Tor Vergata» is not only one of the largest university campus of Rome with six macro areas: Economics, Law, Engineering, Humanities and Philosophy, Medicine and Surgery, Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences, but also hosts important research institutions within the area, such as the CNR (National Research Council) and the ASI (Italian Space Agency), which make «Tor Vergata» one of the most dynamic aggregations in Italy for both teaching and research.¹

1. Cf. http://web.uniroma2.it/ module/name/Content/newlang/ italiano/navpath/CAM/section_ parent/391 , 10.02.2019

Right: University of Rome «Tor Vergata» and Reasearch area of Rome «Tor Vergata»

108

The Research Area of Rome - Tor Vergata 1 [ARTOV] is a territorial area owned by the University of Rome «Tor Vergata», located in the hamlet of Rome called Tor Vergata, granted on loan to the National Research Council in 1986 on the basis of a convention that provides the realization of real estate structures suitable to host research institutes.

The research area, inaugurated in 1998, is one of the largest of the National Research Council and occupies an area of about 28 hectares on which buildings of approximately 35,000 m² are covered and houses about 400 employees among research, technical and administrative staff, belonging to different institutes and departments of the National Research Council and, after a reordering of the Research Institutes has changed the membership of some Institutes, of the National Institute of Astrophysics.2 In the area there are facilities of the following institutes of the National Research Council: IASC - Institute of acoustics and sensors Orso Mario Corbino ISAC - Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences IFT - Institute of translational pharmacology 109

SM - Institute of structure of matter IIA - Institute on Air Pollution IMM - Institute of microelectronics and microsystems ISC - Institute of Complex Systems and of the National Institute of Astrophysics IAPS - Institute of Astrophysics and Space Planetology The activities range in many different scientific fields: physics, biology and pharmacology, sensoristics, materials science, astrophysics, atmospheric physics. With over 600 researchers, technicians, technologists, administrators and other collaborators, ARTOV is involved in multiple multidisciplinary scientific projects, both national and international. ARTOV organizes and participates in various projects in the fields of teaching, organizing guided tours, internships, training courses, exhibitions, promote projects and initiatives for technology and other activities for the public.

Notte Europea dei Ricercatori3 is an annual public event organized by Frascati Scienza and University of Tor Vergata aiming the dissemination of scientific culture to all. The event wants to encourage even more citizen’s participation in scientific research.

1. http://www.artov.rm.cnr.it/istituti/ [official site of Reasearch Area of Rome- Tor Vergata] 2. Cf. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Area_della_ricerca_di_Roma_(Tor_ Vergata), 10.02.2019 3. https://www.frascatiscienza. it/pagine/notte-europea-deiricercatori-2018/, 10.02.2019

italian space agency

Hygeia lab

innovative organic chemistry lab

IAD school mathematics and natural sciences faculty

department of computer engineering and civil engineering faculty of engineering master in sound and performing engineering conference hall heliport student facilities environmental medicine laboratories

faculty of medicine and surgery university of Tor Vergata experimental ecology and aquaculture laboratory garden golf University project site

literature and philosophy faculty motor sciences faculty faculty of economics campus X student housing

archeological site roman villa national research council institute of astrophysics and space planetology

Right: Intellectual resources: intitutions, faculties of University of Rome «Tor Vergata», «ARTOV» Reasearch laboratories and facilities

biology department, botanical garden university INUIT foundation

110

111

V. Failed-Icon Icon - city of Innovation&Experimentation

5.1 Current State.

A contemporary ruin

The most colossal ruin in Rome and one of the biggest throughout the national territory: the City of Sports in Tor Vergata, commonly referred to as ÂŤVela di CalatravaÂť

1. Cf. http://www.diarioromano.it/ citta-in-rovina-la-citta-dello-sport-ator-vergata/, 10.02.2019

114

How beautiful and how dramatic is this high white steel sail designed by Calatrava, like a honeycomb, a cocoon raised in the sky, above the blue of the pools that will come and above the basketball court where the champions should play of the Olympic Games Dramatic, because it is the living example of a capital humiliated by the state, which does not enlarge the purse strings, but also a Rome that has been wrapped around this project by an archistar, who can not carry a bipartisan Rome.

Death and illness have been banned from public life, from our smoothened cities, from the now. For architecture, something similar applies: ruins from times long past are widely appreciated and consumed as memories of worlds that no longer exist. It becomes distressing, however, when we encounter obsolete or decaying buildings from our own times. This is when it gets close, too close for some, because it is about ourselves. A culture so fixated on progress and spotlessness has difficulties dealing with the inevitable downward curves of universal laws.

Nearly all architecture is an expression of infrastructural or financial thinking, 115

perhaps now more than ever. Housing crises reveal that even for living, exchange value has overruled use value.

Cities are planned on the principles of efficiency, comfort, security and predictability, for those who can afford it. Hundreds of websites give the same ten recommendations for that one city. A tightening script is increasingly deciding how spaces ought to be used and experienced. The illusion of perfection, control and linearity generates an absurd pursuit of perfection and an active ignorance towards – or simply the elimination of – irregularities.

At the same time, however, modern ruins are getting more and more attention as a cultural product in media, literature and art. Perhaps this is because they are the exceptional relics that remind us of the transience of being and the futility of human endeavor.

The modern ruin speaks to a growing (sub)consciousness regarding the darker, uncertain and confusing aspects of modernity. 1 Buildings in a limbo between perfection and nothingness, given up on halfway through their construction, fallen into ruin before they were ever used, are an integral part of the Italian architectural landscape.

1. Cf. https://failedarchitecture.com/ 05.03.2019

Right: Axonometric drawing

116

117

level -6.00

level 0.00

level +8.00

118

119

Left: Constructive details of the metallic structure

Right: unfolding ÂŤsailÂť structure Left: Structural elements

120

5.2 Incremental reuse.

Process of architecture

The architect is the intellectual figure who is responsible for good strategies in terms of cost, time, fulfilling the needs and looking into the future, leaving space for innovation and experimentation to take place.

Right: Incremental reuse steps

122

Economic crisis, management problems, financing difficulties, corruption are what the field of architecture is facing now. Rome has a number of unfinished or problematic construction sites which confirms management difficulties of construction of huge projects, resulting in huge retards and costs.

Architects should be able to overcome the challenges posed by politics, economics and building codes to deliver viable solutions to the new projects.

With the new existing technologies of construction the role of architect is changing. The architect is the intellectual figure who is responsible for good strategies in terms of cost, time, fulfilling the needs and looking into the future and leave space for innovation and experimentation to take place.

The proposal for the project is called ÂŤprocess of architectureÂť which means that the process in time of the carefully chosen activities is important. The incremental reuse is needed now, when there are difficulties in finding huge amounts of finance to complete the project. The diagram explains the phases of the incremental reuse strategy.

The project consists in 5 sub-projects which help to revitalize the structure in steps.

123

1. Context (sustainable infrastructure loop for electric tram and bicycles which connects the main university and research facilities) 2. Ruin Reappropiation (Is the fist step in approaching the ruin. The main interventions are the new accesses, the promenade ramp for bicycles and pedestrians and the botanical garden with the green courtyard. The goal of the first step is to accept the ruin as a concept, to see it as an opportunity not threat and to contemplate above its future destination) 3. The museum as a medium for learning (the museum is a mix between art and technology, and art is the medium through which get involved more people into science and research to broaden the both fields) 4. The temporary market, co-working spaces and offices (the main part of the project where practical activities are taking place and for financial sustainability) 5. Auditorium, conference hall, library and residence (enlarged program which makes of the structure a sustainable city) Are similar to 5 scenarios which any of them correspond to a specific cost (on horizontal) and time (on vertical).

The cost line depends on the private or public investments available.

Right: Incremental reuse schedule.

On horizontal-cost and five subprojects, on vertical-time and intervention steps.

2. Reappro

1. Contextua

steps

5f

3e

1d

2d

4e

5e

4d

3d

1a eletric tram loop 1b ecological restoration of water ditches 1c agri-park 1d urban parks

5d

2a bike&pedestrian ramp 2b new accesses -6.00 2c new accesses +8.00 2d botanical garden 1c

3c

2c

3b temporary art events 3c art depository&caveau 3d research laboratories 3e art&technology museum

4c

4c temporary market 4d co-working spaces shops&restaurants 4e offices for rent 1b

2b

1a

2a

f1

3b

f2

5d multimedia library library 5e conference room auditorium sport hall 5f residences&guesthouse

f3

f4

f5 cost(financing)

124

5.3 Ruin Reappropiation

We have stopped visiting churches, cities have become neat consumption environments, quiet spaces are a luxury now, and landscapes have been cemented. Where can we go to feel small and alone? To experience silence? To experience fate and the interplay between time and the elements? 1

1. Cf. https://failedarchitecture.com/ maybe-modern-ruins-are-just-thekind-of-failure-we-need/ , 10.02.2019

126

The first step in approaching the building is a vital one and consists in visiting and spending time inside the abandoned building. One indication of the growing desire for spaces offering qualities such as these, is the fact that urban exploration, the act of tracing and exploring abandoned and ruined buildings, has grown from an obscure activity to an accepted form of tourism.

The disturbing sensation of the modern ruin is definitely one of melancholy.

But there is more to it than only depression about possible future of it. The spaces left behind can be a liberation from the dominant spatial and cultural narrative of productivity and function that is tightening around our necks. The modern ruin offers the relief of imperfection. Decay triggers imagination and contemplation. All of a sudden, possibilities arise because time and space are no longer fixed within the usual conventions of functionality and beauty. The modern ruin evokes this different way of seeing. Do we have the courage to change the polished, effective and profitable image of architecture into one that has more respect for time, nature and contemplation? Aimless structures could just be the kind of humbling spaces we need as space for contemplation.

127

botanical garden& green courtyard

promenade ram for bikes&pedestrians

promenade ramp through entire building

new accesses level +8.00

new accesses level -6.00

Left: first intervention - creating space of contemplation with new accesses and security interventions

Right: the views along the bikes&pedestrians ramp

128

5.4 Contextualization Ecological Restoration

ÂŤRestoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human intervention and action.Âť1

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Restoration_ecology, 10.02.2019

Right: master planning urban project

130

There is consensus in the scientific community that the current environmental degradation and destruction of many of the Earth’s biota is taking place on a catastrophically short timescale. Ecosystem function describes the most basic and essential foundational processes of any natural systems, including nutrient cycles and energy fluxes. An understanding of the complexity of these ecosystem functions is necessary to address any ecological processes that may be degraded. Ecosystem functions are emergent properties of the system as a whole, thus monitoring and management are crucial for the longterm stability of ecosystems. A fully functional ecosystem that is completely self-perpetuating is the ultimate goal of restorative efforts. We must understand what ecosystem properties influence others to restore desired functions and reach this goal1 Tor Vergata is situated on a vast hydrological system of water ditches which were the main resources of irrigation for centuries. Nowadays with the wide areas of uncontrolled urbanization the ecosystem suffer. Most of the ditches are dry, filled with waste or forced by the urban developments.

The project consists in three main stages 131

1. Ecological restoration of the water ditches. The water ditches can become a sustainable resource of irrigation for the arable lands around and also work as natural wastewater treatment. Most of the water used by homes, industries, and businesses must be treated before it is released back to the environment. natural wastewater treatments can be very advantageous for a variety of reasons: simplicity of their design and construction, cost-effectivenessnatural wastewater treatment processes have a lower cost in terms of building. efficiency, reliability- natural systems are very reliable even in extreme operating conditions as they can adsorb a wide variety of hydraulic and organic feed.

2. Create agri-park along the water ditches. Tor Vergata has a very fertile soil which can explain the territory’s argricultural character.Agriculture has become of great interest in finding new answers for how cities can master recent social, economic, and ecological challenges.

3. Create urban parks for leisure time and open-air participatory activities along the urban agriculture parks. The vast parks include all the archaeological sites and bike paths in the area of Tor Vergata and adjacent localities.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Restoration_ecology, 05.03.2019

create urban parks along the agri-parkwhich include the archaeological sites

create agri-parks along the water ditches for better irrigation

ecological restoration of the water ditches

Right: phases of ecological restoration of the area

132

crops arable land

project site

basins for experimental ecology fruit trees

olive trees

vineyards

Right: masterplan of agri-park surrounding the building 133

archaeological site

crops arable land

public space

hill park

open air cinema

parking

134

5.5 Museum of Art&Technology.

Multifunctional Reversible City

Economic crisis as well as the complex societal issues that our society currently faces, require a great deal of innovation. In fact, they require a culture in which design skills and collaboration between designers, scientists and creative pioneers play key role. Collaboration, the entwinement of work and pleasure, mobility and sharing knowledge and expertise is almost a matter of course in this new experimental city.

Right: collage view: Inhabit the Ruin

136

Museum of Art&Technology Tor Vergata has a big range of variegated research institutions and university science laboratories, results of which are exposed annually at the event «The European Researchers’ Night» in Frascati. Anyway, the spaces are not well adapted to this kind of events of international importance, and there is the need of a space dedicated to the exhibition of the innovative results in science and technology. Therefore, the Museum of Art&Technology is intended to merge art and science for a more efficient spreading of science, rise of interest among people and impovement of both domains, because of the new vision the artist and scientist offer to each other. Art can be the medium for a easier understanding of science, as a learning tool. The collision of arts and science is an ancient practice, it’s embedded into our daily lives and the key to engaging future audiences, as the Science Gallery experience attests, it’s an attractive lens to inspire young adults as they consider their impact on the future. Therefore the building can become an important meeting point of art &science in Europe and become a place of innovation and experimentation at international level.

137

Museum of Art&Technology Laboratories 1. plant biology lab 2. medicine lab 3. structure of matter lab 4. laser spectroscopy lab 5. photolithography, printing techniques lab 6. physical, chemical and biological micro-sensors lab 7. atoms and molecules lab 8. meteorology and atmosphere lab 9. techniques for restoration works of art lab 10. Quantistic technologies lab 11. X radiation and satellites lab 12. plasma chamber lab 13. space planetology lab 14. multispectral imager for subsurface lab 15. light and color perception lab 16. photosynthesis lab

science laboratories

+

art museum

housing& residences

botanical garden library

co-working spaces

shops restaurants

temporary market

research laboratories museum

parking

museum lobby

offices

auditorium conferences Right: Multi-functional program of the City of Innovation and Exeperimentation

green courtyard

depository archive

138

The project presents a vision of the potential offered by the abandoned ruin and a new way of analyzing and designing, known as ÂŤstrategic interventionÂť. The chosen program deals with experimentation in design education and the possible applications that relate to political, social and economical concerns. The functional mix is concerned with put together to collaborate different collectives of designers, scientists, artists and specialists in developing new ideas.

Economic crisis as well as the complex societal issues that our society currently faces, require a great deal of innovation.

In fact, they require a culture in which design skills and collaboration between scientists and artists. An important question is how we can deploy the efforts of numerous talented individuals with both theoretical and practical backgrounds, using the unique qualities and spatial conditions of the contemporary ruin.

Therefore the project argues for cross-fertilization between pioneering research and the ideas of creative young initiators or entrepreneurs: it is at this interface that innovation can be expected. For researchers this type of collaboration provides an opportunity to 139

test insights in practice. Providing creative pioneers and researchers with sheared work with artists and designers and experimentation spaces makes it easier for them to work together and share their knowledges, creativity and social networks.

When an architect struggles with a particular issue, a talented lawyer who spends two days a week in the same building working on a research proposal can provide him with access to different, relevant professional and social network. Cross-fertilization between different disciplines occur spontaneously here and they demonstrably lead to innovation.

Besides this, an intensive program of public events, both during the day and late at night, ensures that knowledge and ideas are exchanged between talented people from different disciplines.

There is no-doubt whatsoever that over the next decade cities will call upon the temporary help of multi-disciplinary teams of talented young specialists who are able to design and build the impossible.

Collaboration, the entwinement of work and pleasure, mobility and sharing knowledge and expertise is almost a matter of course in this new

1. Rietveld Ronald, Vacancy Studies. Experiments&Strategic Interventions in Architecture, Rotterdam, 2014

experimental city which the ruin will host. The vision to use the vacant huge ruin for innovation is also about finding new economic and societal value for the empty buildings in other places of Italy.

It can result in a flourishing creative ecology and create a favorable location for talented individuals to establish themselves. Favorable spatial conditions are invaluable for attracting and keeping international talent.

Rome needs such a place of experimentation and collaborations between entities which were never been connected. It is a chance for the city to have in the periphery a reference place for experimentation and attracting new international deals.

For the development of knowledge, it is important to consider a building’s creative ecology, the knowledge network within Tor Vergata, which are mainly the University faculties and facilities and Research institutions.

A clear analysis of place’s creative ecology contributed to identify and develop an interesting, location-specific program. So the new program respond to the local needs such as temporary market, shopping gallery, restaurants, local library, co-working botanical garden and have also space

for international trades such as the conference hall, auditorium, offices, research laboratories, museum, art deposit and art caveau. Also it is supported the local products marketing and the use of the soil for urban agriculture.

Therefore the implemented «strategic intervention»1 is a precisely chosen and carefully designed intervention in Tor Vergata where is desired a development.

Strategic interventions require a new, location and context-specific way of thinking and looking.

The central skill is to link opportunities on a regional and national scale with local character. This integral design approach results in unexpected and at times paradoxical architecture and in vibrant public spaces. It is necessary to have multi--disciplinary group: enrichment lies in the combination of specialists and not in the wider range os specialists.

Design as an expertise approach is currently developing at a rapid pace.

Students can become partners in this process to a much greater extent. It is the task of education to create a space in which students can move freely. Art and design should relate much more closely to science and economics.

140

a typical day for a local auditorium shops marketplace camping museum and library open-air events

a typical day for a researcher conference hall co-working restaurant residence research laboratory exhibition place deposit/archive

a typical day for a student sport hall co-working housing restaurant open air events

141

level +8.20 housing&recidence guesthouse botanical garden camping level +3.20 new accesses guesthouse multimedia library level 0.00 co-working spaces shopping gallery shops&local products restaurants temporary market&food court museum of art&technology research laboratories museum lobby level -5.00 auditorium conference hall green courtyard parking offices for rent museum courts museum of art&technology museum lobby museum shop art depository 142

5.6 Failed-Icon Icon - City of Innovation&Experimentation

The Ruin will host a new City where Art and Design will meet Science, Technology, Economy, Ecology and Business in order to innoovate, experiment, practice and enlarge the fields through collaboration. The building is meant to be an Icon of Innovation of Rome, thanks to it’s unique spatial conditions and experimental program.

1. Cf. http://web.uniroma2.it/ module/name/Content/newlang/ italiano/navpath/CAM/section_ parent/391 , 10.02.2019

Right: visibility of the new Icon of Tor Vergata

144

Right: longitudinal section 145

146

So, what is a Failed-Icon Icon?

The word «failure» in this context has a different connotation. Failure meaning a new beginning, a door guiding to something totally different. The Sports City of Calatrava has failed for many reasons represented above, but this should not be considered a closed cycle, the development continues, and the innovation take place thanks to the previous failure, maintaining the iconic characteristics which can be used as a strength for the future project.

This iconic qualities of the project are: it is big, compressed as a form, highly unusual, recognizable(famous) by people, is dramatic and memorable, is a not explicit form, involves people’s experience, involves contrasting codesfailure(ruin) and innovation(future vision), fear and attraction, love and paranoia, provocative and practical has a specific given name «Vela», is a landmark of the place, has a symbolic value (like a monument), is enigmatic, has an important social function: it is a enigmatic signifier1 Therefore, the failure of the past icon gives an increased degree of iconicity and value to the new project as a city of innovation.

In order to link vacancy to the development of knowlegde, it is 147

necessary to develop a culture that attracts likeminded people, «a new work landscape» where the diving line between work time and leisure time is blurred, living and working become increasingly integrated, mobility and flexibility are important, and new groups and collaborative methods develop. In this place students will have a social basis, where work-landscape communities would be based on content - students would study during the day and voluntarily put time and energy into the community in the evenings. Is not the location itself that determines where individuals stay, but rather the culture they identify themselves with. At the same time, this community’s «own culture» would be the binding element between the individual.2 The value of «time» is different for creative people than for economists, whose motto is «time is money» and where experimental time is often considered expensive. However, young entrepreneurs and artists who are just starting out often have a lot of time but little money. If they are provided with cheap accommodation for housing and work they can use their time and talent for focused experiments, which can lead to innovation, a place which Rome can have now.

1. Cf. Aaron Betsky, Icons: Magnets of Meaning, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1997 [the word «enigmatic signifier» is explained] 2. Rietveld Ronald, Vacancy Studies. Experiments&Strategic Interventions in Architecture, Rotterdam, 2014

Right: Metaphorical analysis of the terms used to describe Calatrava’s incomplete project: [Sports City by Calatrava]. Drawings by the Author

148

149

V. Thesis Sheets

Failed-Icon Icon A Contemporary Ruin

150

Territorial Framing

151

Iconic Buildings as Symbols

152

Strategy. Incremental reuse Scenario

153

I. Contextualization.

Ecological restoration

154

II. Ruin Reappropriation

155

III. Museum of Art&Technology. City of Innovation&Experimentation

Step III&IV. Museum of Art&Technology and the City of Innovation&Experimentation

housing&residence

guesthouse bike path

botanical garden camping bike path

bike&pedestrian ramp garden stands

housing& residences

botanical garden library

co-working spaces

shops restaurants

auditorium conferences

green courtyard

temporary market

research laboratories museum

parking

museum lobby

offices

independent accesses

guesthouses

depository archive

local multimedia library bike&pedestrian ramp

existing structure

a typical day for a student sport hall co-working housing restaurant open air events

a typical day for a researcher conference hall co-working restaurant residence research laboratory exhibition place deposit/archive co-working spaces shopping gallery

shops with local products/food bike&pedestrian ramp bike&pedestrian path restaurants

temporary market&food court research laboratories museum main gallery outdoor deck

museum galleries research laboratories

lobby museum staff offices

a typical day for a local auditorium shops marketplace camping museum and library open-air events

auditorium

conference hall bike&pedestrian path offices for rent green courtyard technical space parking

parking

bike&pedestrian ramp museum depository exhibitions&video projections museum court museum court ramp lobby &open air events

museum shop access to art caveau

research laboratories

art museum

+ Research laboratories Institutes of the National Research Council University of Tor Vergata

Failed-Icon Icon. Incremental Reuse of the ÂŤSports CityÂť Incomplete Project by Santiago Calatrava in Rome as an Urban Active Device in Continuous (Re)Construction Thesis Author: Irina Bulgaru Advisors: Antonello Stella, Walter Nicolino Co-Advisor: Marco Mulazzani Architecture|University of Ferrara

7.

156

Longitudinal&Transversal Section

Longitudinal&Transversal Section

1 3

2

Section 2|1:200

Section 1|1:200

Failed-Icon Icon. Incremental Reuse of the ÂŤSports CityÂť Incomplete Project by Santiago Calatrava in Rome as an Urban Active Device in Continuous (Re)Construction Thesis Author: Irina Bulgaru Advisors: Antonello Stella, Walter Nicolino Co-Advisor: Marco Mulazzani Architecture|U

157

University of Ferrara

Section 3|1:100 Dry construction systems

beam type IPE 120 with interposed rock wool insulation wood panels with woodworm treatment 25mm windproof UV sheet 0,50 mm

OSB panel 20 mm double layer of medium density rock wool insulation with C-pillars for plasterboard in galvanized sheet 60 + 60mm plasterboard sheet 12.5mm vapor barrier

plasterboard sheet 12.5mm plant cavity with C-posts for plasterboard in galvanized sheet 0.6 mm thick, interposed with rock wool insulation 50 mm double plasterboard slab 12.5+12.5mm white water-based paint for interior finishing 0.5mm

porcelain stoneware flooring tiles 250x750 mm 10 mm cement-based substrate 25 mm light insulating concrete 50mm underfloor insulation layer of extruded polystyrene panels 80mm structural slab in corrugated sheet and concrete 55+70 mm with electrowelded mesh beam type HEA 180, main structure

photovoltaic solar panels

metalic curved structural beam 500mm beam type HEA 180, main structure support metalic frame 50mm soundproofing panels 25mm

+8.20

+3.20

0.00

-5.00

+8.20

+3.20 0.00

-6.00

8.

Failed-Icon Icon. Incremental Reuse of the «Sports City» Incomplete Project by Santiago Calatrava in Rome as an Urban Active Device in Continuous (Re)Construction Thesis Author: Irina Bulgaru Advisors: Antonello Stella, Walter Nicolino Co-Advisor: Marco Mulazzani Architecture|University of Ferrara

9.

Failed-Icon Icon. Incremental Reuse of the «Sports City» Incomplete Project by Santiago Calatrava in Rome as an Urban Active Device in Continuous (Re)Construction Thesis Author: Irina Bulgaru Advisors: Antonello Stella, Walter Nicolino Co-Advisor: Marco Mulazzani Architecture|University of Ferrara

10.

158

Ground Floor Plan

159

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the University of Ferrara for giving me the chance to develop my research in Italy and to meet very good professionals in architecture field, some of whom became my advisors later.

Therefore, I want to thank people with great skill, originality and innovativeness for their support and guidance through my journey like Prof. Walter Nicolino, Antonello Stella, Marco Mulazzani, also Prof. Luca Emanueli, Gabriele Toneguzzi, Ave Gastone for their help in broadening the vision.

My sincere thanks goes also to Ing. Polini who guided us in the construction site, Fosbury Architecture and Petra Blaisse for their dedicated knowledge, time or just a friendly talk.

Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee for their encouragement and insightful comments.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support: Constantin for his patience and deep thoughts, for supporting me spiritually throughout my life and who believes in me more than myself, my sister Ana who is all logic and intelligence and my parents who are far but always close. Niccolò, my best friend in University, who thinks even now that I am Russian and all my beloved colleagues with whom we spent white nights.

Thankful and eager for new collaborations and projects from the unknown future.

Irina Bulgaru 160

Aaron Betsky, Icons: Magnets of Meaning, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1997 Charles Jencks, The iconic building, New York, Rizzoli, 2005 Fischer von Erlach, Entwurff einer Historischen Architektur, 1721 Paul Jones The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities, Liverpool Univ Pr ,30 novembre 2008 p.120 Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists, UK, 2012 Rem Koolhaas, Generic City, United States of America, 1995 Robert Booth, «Speed Merchants», Building Design, 2003, and Part Two, «Fortune Cookie», 2003, p.10 Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau S,M,L,XL, United States of America, 1995 Philip Jodidio, Santiago Calatrava, Spain 1998, p.16 Denyan Sudjic, An Olympian who could Run and Run, Observer, Review, 2004

Alterazioni Video and Fosbury Architecture, Incompiuto. The birth of a Style, Milano, 2018 Rietveld Ronald, Rietveld Erik, Vacancy Studies. Experiments&Strategic interventions in architecture, Netherland, 2014 Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins, Gil-Manuel Hernàndez i Martí & Francisco Torres, Urban Development and Cultural Policy “White Elephants”: Barcelona and Valencia, European Planning Studies, 2015 XXV Congresso C.T.A, The italian steel days,[Complex steel shapes: the sails of City os Sport in Rome], Volume I, 2015, p. 774 Marc Augé, Le temps en ruines, the University of Michigan, 2003 Handa, Rumiko, Experiencing the Architecture of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent, University of Nebraska-Lincoln , 2015 Cf. Alberto Tomasino, (In)Compiuto(thesis) , University of Palermo , 2016

Brott Sott. Calatrava in Athens: The Architect as Financier and the Iconic City, The Journal of Public Space,Australia, 2017

Studio Albori, Housing Italy, Domestication of an eco-moster, 2008

Lahouti Navid, Theatre in the Last 50 Years (thesis), Politecnico di Milano, 2013

Adriano Ruggeri-Ornello Colandrea, Fra Tor Vergata e i castelli romani: uso del suolo fra ottocento e contemporaneo, Uniroma,2016

Marc Augé, Le temps en ruines, Michigan, 2003 161

Bibliography

Sitography

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/, 05.03.2019 https://www.youtube.com/ 05.03.2019 http://www.zeroundicipiu.it/ 05.03.2019 https://theculturetrip.com/ 05.03.2019 www.theguardian.com/ 05.03.2019 https://calatrava.com/ 05.03.2019 https://codacons.it/ 05.03.2019 https://www.corriere.it/ 05.03.2019 https://thetimemachine/ 05.03.2019 http://living.corriere.it/ 05.03.2019 https://web.archive.org/ 05.03.2019 http://www.michelangelo.net/ 05.03.2019 https://dprbcn.wordpress.com/ 05.03.2019 https://www.vogue.com/ 05.03.2019 https://www.humboldtbooks.com/ 05.03.2019 http://unfinished.es/ 05.03.2019 http://www.corrieredisciacca.it/ 05.03.2019 https://theculturetrip.com/ 05.03.2019 https://www.canada.ca/ 05.03.2019 http://web.uniroma2.it/ 05.03.2019 http://www.artov.rm.cnr.it/ 05.03.2019 https://www.frascatiscienza.it/ 05.03.2019 http://www.diarioromano.it/ 05.03.2019 https://failedarchitecture.com/ 05.03.2019 http://web.uniroma2.it/https:/ 05.03.2019

162