Rome Marathon: Preparation

On Thursday we went to the Palazzo dei Congressi in EUR to pick up Vincenzo's race materials for Sunday's Rome Marathon.

The entry into the Marathon Village

Picking up the race materials for runner 12505.

This is the official gear bag

We are in Rome, so of course there is a Mass for the athletes.

The celebrant is chatting with some of the athletes after the Mass.

By coincidence, Sunday's second lesson is about running a race!

Brothers, I do not reckon myself as having taken hold of it; I can only say that forgetting all that lies behind me, and straining forward to what lies in front, I am racing towards the finishing-point to win the prize of God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)

After Mass we had the pre-marathon pasta dinner.

The runners will go over many sanpietrini (cobblestones) during the course of the Rome Marathon.

Here I am with Pietrino,

a walking cobblestone and the race mascot.

Vincenzo's name and number appear on the screen. There is a chip attached to the race number bib that will transmit and record data when it passes checkpoints, including the start and finish.

Vincenzo leaving the Palazzo dei Congressi

and ready for the race on Sunday!

Here are some pictures showing details of this great building designed by Adalberto Libera as part of the 1942 Universal Exposition of Rome (EUR) that never happened. The project was started in 1938 and not actually completed until 1954.

Click here for more information about EUR.

EUR

The Roman neighborhood of EUR started in 1938 as a bedroom community, part of Mussolini's plan to extend Rome to the sea. The plan changed when Mussolini decided to have a "Universal Exposition of Rome" in 1942 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Fascism. Because of World War II it never happened, and the project was abandoned. In 1951 the structures that were wrecked by German occupation and then by war refugees were repaired and construction began again. Buildings were added to EUR in the 1950's and 1960's. The neighborhood continues to expand today. It is a major government center and the number of private residences is continually growing. One year ago a large shopping mall was opened. (See my blog posting for EUROMA2.)

Last week I went to a SPORTELLO AMICO (Friend Window) at the Post Office in EUR. I had to sign a couple of documents that are part of the process of obtaining my permesso di soggiorno, the permission to stay in Italy. This gave me an opportunity to take some photos of some of EUR's buildings.

The center of EUR is the Piazza Marconi, dominated by a modern obelisk commemorating Gugliemo Marconi, the inventor of the radio. It was sculpted by Arturo Dazzi in 1959.
This is one of the two symmetrical buildings with large semi-circular porticos inspired by the Market of Trajan in the historic center of Rome. It was designed by Giovanni Muzio, Mario Paniconi and Giulio Pediconi and built in 1937.

One of the most famous buildings in EUR is sometimes called the Square Coliseum. It can be seen when driving from Leonardo da Vinci Airport to the center of Rome. It is the Palazzo della Cività del Lavoro by Giovanni Giurrini, Ernesto Bruno La Padula and Mario Romano (1939).
The Palazzo dei Congressi by Adalberto Libera (1939) is a favorite of many architects. Libera also desiged the Post Office building at the Porta San Paolo. See the entry of April 30, 2008 on my blog for information about the Post Office.

Apartments by Adalberto Libera

In the Tuscolano neighborhood in the southern part of Rome (near Cinecittà) there is an interesting housing project (1950-1954) designed by Adalberto Libera. It remains the only single level (one story) apartment complex in Rome.


The entrance to the apartments as seen from the adjacent neighborhood.






When you first approach the apartments on Via Selinute, you encounter a long row of storefronts, in a single-level building. It is interrupted in the middle by an almost “monumental” entrance, formed by a vaulted roof that seems to float above the walls that support it. On entering, you leave the rest of the city behind and walk into a large garden with radial paths that take residents to their apartments.



After crossing the garden you enter the apartment grid. Each section of the grid has four parts. Three of the parts are apartments and the fourth part is a patio. This plan offers residents a new possibility for outside space, a semi-private patio.


While this views shows that the roofs are not attractive when looked at from above, it does reveal the open patios. Between the apartments and the freight train, visible in the distance, is a small river, and beyond the train are ancient Roman ruins.

In addition to the low houses, Libera built an apartment tower of five floors, each with a “ballatoio.” The building’s stairs led to outside walkways that gave access to the apartments, rather than to inside landings with the apartment doors. This was an innovation that has been often repeated in Rome. (The Italian word” ballatoio” is often translated as balcony, but it is really more like a suspended bridge, a place for walking, or maybe even dancing!)

Note: Libera designed many other projects in Rome, including a post office.

1001 Buildings: A Post Office

Last Christmas some friends gave me a book titled 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die: The World's Finest Architectural Masterpieces, edited by Mark Irving. (2007, Universe Publishing, a division of Rizzoli International, New York)

One of the buildings in this book was the big Post Office, 3 km from our apartment. I had always noticed it as a "nice" building, but after reading about it in the book I now pay particular attention every time I pass it on the bus. Adalberto Libera and Mario DeRenzi's design was the winner of a competition for a post office at the foot of the Aventine Hill, across the street from the 1st Century BC Pyramid of Cestius and the medieval Porta San Paolo,

This post office is one of the many buildings from the Fascist era in Rome. It is a travertine U-shaped building, housing three floors of offices with an enclosed oval space in the middle. This attractive stainless steel, marble and glass public hall is a form like the nearby Circus Maximus and the familiar Piazza Navona. Instead of people gathering here for races and games, people wait for postal services. I find particularly interesting the lattice-like walls of the building's side wings, the strong horizontal of the long front porch, and the view from the street of the upper level of the public hall.






















Here are some pictures of a 1929 fire station across the street from the Post Office. It was built just four years before the Post Office!