A few weeks ago the initial renderings were released of the first building that will be part of the new EUROPARCO-development in Rome, a project that has been approved by the city council.Construction will begin in november 2005 with a big shoppingmall of the French group SCC .The construction of the tower will start in 2006 and will be finished within a 2 year-timeperiod. Next to it will be another skyscraper but no data has been released on that building for the moment. It will of course be close to EUR, Rome's modern central business district so there is no influence on the historical city or the beautifull panorama of historical Rome. :)

The building has been designed by Franco Purini, it will be 120 meters tall, just 7 meters shorter than the famous Pirelli-skyscraper in Milan.It's a steel-glass skyscraper with almost no concrete. The facade is in travertine, the traditional roman stone used in many famous roman landmarks such as the Colosseum and many buildings in the EUR-area such as this one :

http://www.giardinodivenere.it/rubrichefiles/eur07.jpg

It will be a mixed use building : residential and offices ( Department of Health...). The luxury appartments will have "loggia's" and a magnificent view over modern Rome and the artificial lake of Eur. The building will have three sky-bridges with so-called "hanging gardens", these are not visble on the first renderings. Inside, the building will have the lastest technology for waste-managment and energy-saving. At the base will be a great plaza, bigger than Piazza Navona with artworks.... .

http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/images/4611/938902390.jpg

http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/images/4611/1758295253.jpg

http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/images/4611/796784976.jpg

http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/images/4611/488033849.jpg

the area of the Europarco (the circular building is the Palazzo dello Sport-arena)

http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/images/4611/717444254.jpg


this is a preliminary model of the entire project with the other surrounding buildings. Of course the two towers are just to give an indication of the volume, they will look completely different in reality :

http://www.studiotransit.it/projects/img_foto/big_castellaccio_00.jpg

http://www.studiotransit.it/projects/img_foto/big_castellaccio_01.jpg

http://www.studiotransit.it/projects/img_foto/big_castellaccio_02.jpg

http://www.studiotransit.it/projects/img_foto/big_castellaccio_03.jpg

http://www.studiotransit.it/projects/img_foto/big_castellaccio_04.jpg

http://www.studiotransit.it/projects/img_foto/big_castellaccio_05.jpg

I've never thought about it before, skyscrapers in Rome. Wow. Really, I've never really thought about the lack of skyscrapers in Rome. As far as the building goes, well I'm not really impressed. I think it's the antenna on top that really throws it.

I think that antenna ruins the look of the building.

^indeed

Thank you, Caesars-Palace! :) May I commend you for your thorough and thoughtful introduction to to this project. :okay:

I hope this will be on a way long distance from the historical citycenter.

yes it it's a long distance from the historical center. In EUR there is only modern architecture (1930-now).

Some pictures of the area :

http://www.gruppobonifaci.com/images/eurnewzoom1.jpg

http://www.pubbliaerfoto.it/archivio_foto/34035.jpg

http://www.pubbliaerfoto.it/archivio_foto/34034.jpg

http://www.pubbliaerfoto.it/archivio_foto/33935.jpg

http://www.pubbliaerfoto.it/archivio_foto/32017.jpg

http://www.pubbliaerfoto.it/archivio_foto/32018.jpg

Eni-building
http://www.euroskyscrapers.it/roma/rm/roma1.jpg

http://www.euroskyscrapers.it/roma/rm/roma2.jpg

Inail
http://www.inail.it/inail/ctepatrimonio/ctestoria/img/Grattacielo2.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/breakfast/oracle01.jpg

And in may the construction will start of a spectacular new convention center nicknamed "The Cloud", also in the EUR-area :)

Pretty nice...but ...doesn't look very much like corporativo Santa Fé in Mexico City?

Indeed , I noticed the similarities between the two buildings also :runaway: . I think there are a few differences : corporativo Santa Fé is taller and the windows continue untill the roof, Europarco will have a different facade with the white travertine and of course the 3 skybridges.

I like the grass buildings in the model!

I hope the tower isn't that concrete like white.

That antenna is evil.

I don't like it. I just don't get how many European city's build so many crappy looking high-rises and scrapers. And to think they all got beautiful historical centers for inspiration.

skyscraper in Rome???

a wonderful idea

Well a skyscraper in Rome is a good idea as long they don't put 'em in the middle of the historic downtown.

The computer image looks OK but I prefer glass skyscrapers this MAY look a bit flat in real.(eg. Westpoint in Tilburg, The Netherlands witch also looked good on the computer).

The renderings show the facade to be dull and boring. Hopefully it will look better on the inside. Also the spire and the funny "stair" windows on the middle bit ruin it.

It looks like a tower in Mexico City called "Torre Bosques"

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/6203/arcos68za.jpg

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/7962/arcos211fo.jpg

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/3272/arcos72lf.jpg

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/4570/arcos223is.jpg

The building is not really interesting and looks dated.

They're both ugly

I don't like it. Then again, I'm just not a fan of the latest in architecture designs. I find them too slab-like and I especially dislike it when each floor has it's plate jutting out from it as though it were a full-around balcony with no railings. Reminds me too much of that drab sixties looks. This one is nicer than alot of whats been coming out lately, I'll give it that much but the top is what ruins it for me.

Good news, since you rarely see skyscrapers in Rome. I am glad it is not in the historical center though. I think this thing on the top should be in the middle of the roof though.

The rendering is also a catastrophe. I wait for a better one to make up my mind.
:soon:

Not sure i like that one... Somehow, from looking at that mexican version, it seems that an arched building like that should be the surprise at a centre of a cluster, not a stand alone.

I see Nightsky has made a nice drawing of the building for the Rome-diagram on Skyscraperpage :okay: :

http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?c896



.

Some of the proposals look very nice!

Rome should definitely follow Paris's example and keep the skyscrapers out of the old city. It looks like many of the skyscrapers standing now are in a segregated area, even if they are surrounded by the old city. These new buildings should definitely be built outside of the city limits, IMHO.

No. Please not in Rome. Anywhere else but Rome.

Yes but EUR is far from the historical center, even further from the city than La Defense in Paris for example. EUR and it's modern buildings are not visble from the center. On this website you find a good description of the area :

http://www.italyheaven.co.uk/rome/areas/eur.html


EUR started as a giant project during the fascist era for the World Fair of 1942.It was designed as a "modern vision" of a New Rome, a completely new city outside Rome. Of course with a fascist inspiration and thus with monumental neo-classical buildings but also with modern "rationalistic" architecture. The construction began in the 1930's but was stopped when World War II started. Maybe 70% of the project was finished, but some buildings were left partially constructed, others such as the huge Arc of the Empire, a 320 meter high landmark that was to be one of the main attractions of the fair, remained forever on the drawing table. In the fifties the world forgot about the World Fair that never happened. The only reminder was EUR ,a strange semi-finished town in the fields outside Rome with monumental buildings in travertine.


http://www.net-art.it/cirese/photo/roma-col/eur/eur11.jpg

http://www.net-art.it/cirese/photo/roma-col/eur/eur20.jpg

http://www.giovannirinaldi.it/page/rome/romaeur/romaeur0028.jpg


some pictures made by SdR (a member of the Italian Forum)

Eur Masterplan 1939 :
http://www.cipolletti.net/foto/mostra_e42/DSCN131.JPG

Arc of the Empire :
http://www.cipolletti.net/foto/mostra_e42/DSCN140.JPG

But the city grew fast and in the sixties the ambition was back to realize new things. There were the Olympics of 1960 and the need for infrastructure. And so it was decided to regenerate EUR. The gaps in the old masterplan were filled in :with sporting facilities for the Games (Palazzo dello Sport....).The artificial lake was constructed and the metro-line that was already planned to connect the World Fair with the city, was finished.
http://www.giovannirinaldi.it/page/rome/romaeur/romaeur0004.jpg


The city also needed modern buildings and offices for the government departments... . So it was convenient that there was this modern mini-city already waiting outside Rome to be developed. EUR got it's first office-buildings and "highrise"buildings. Rome for more than 40 years had the vision of relocating all offices of the governement, city-council, university,UN-FAO,...to a real modern Central Business District called SDO (Sistema Direzionale Orientale). Renzo Piano designed skyscrapers for the SDO, Kenzo Tange worked years on a masterplan...but after decades of talking and dreaming, the SDO is still a paper dream. Meanwhile however EUR took the role as "Rome's modern city", a roman version of a CBD. And it is still developping today, with the Europarco but also with projects like the convention center that will go under construction within a few weeks :) :

http://www.bta.it/img/a0/03/bta00324.jpg

:) :) :)

don't like it at all

the area of the Europarco looks very modern. but the so called skyscraper is common.

Thank god its no where near the Historical Heart. This is a dodgy building possibly made with lego that goes over the top with a hideous antenna. Frankly, this building looks like a 3 year olds design and the antenna looks like an after thought. If i was a roman id quickly become one of those anti development people that protest highrises. No wonder Rome dosent build much skyscrapers...

White skyscrapers never work. Go and take a look at city tower in Manchester built in the 60s it was white but it sure aint now.

Rome needs skyscrapers, but this is a terrible design. The antenna is creative but very distracting. The rest of the building... :puke:

Thanks, Caesars Palace, this addition of this building makes Rome's diagram a little bit more interesting since there are almost no highrises there. :)

actually i like the skyscraper (altho its height pales in asia's standard of skyscrapers - so should we even call it that?) but its solidness and bauhaus skin tone and colour makes it very italian. EUR, for one, is almost fascist in its exaltation of the ubiquitous Italian arch. Of course its unfair of me to associate fascism with contemporary Italian architecture, but i guess its just that business activities in Italy, such economy driving enterprises, go way back in history with Italy's whole movement of nationalism. In quick steps of sequence we saw the kingdom unification, the rise of the Facist party under Mussolini, and general industrialisation of a country otherwise popularised by its bucolic olive grove imagery. Business districts like this, just like in Paris, were designed by planners to be collectivised away from the original urban centres in solitary clumps of a unison style. Individual designs for the EUR then tingled with concepts of state engineered excellence in the business industry, and in the EUR's case, fascism lingered too recent in history for the minimalist whitewashed edifices to be construed as anything but.

But very italian! i think it works.

Now I know why São Paulo architecture is not that great... because of the city was like 50% born in italy in 1900!!

On the other hand, the first São Paulo skyscraper, built by an italian in 1928, the Martinelly building, is awesome.

reminds me of the proposal of 2012 olympics residence in queens, NYC

http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/images/4611/1758295253.jpg
great and class.looking like mussolinian architecture.