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Roma 20-25

The exhibition opening at MAXXI is the result of an international workshop comprising twelve Italian and thirteen international universities whose task was to produce readings, visions and projects for the Rome of the future.

The “Roma 20-25: New Life Cycles for the Metropolis” project draws inspiration from the 1978 “Roma Interrotta”exhibition. Thirty-five years ago, twelve renowned architects were asked to design Rome’s urban development by using Nolli’s map from the 18th century, as if Rome’s urban development had been “interrupted”, imagining that Rome had stopped two and a half centuries before. Going back in time, they planned the city over again.

A mosaic of interpretations and proposals on many themes, from architecture to landscape, from infrastructures to lifestyles, for which each of the twenty-five universities invited analyzed and designed a macro measuring 10 km per side. The idea of assigning this task to this group of universities harks back to previous experiences, for instance, “Learning from Las Vegas” by Venturi and Scott-Brown (1972), and Colin Rowe’s figure-ground diagram (1978) as an instrument of analysis and urban design.

The goal of ROMA 20-25 is to ask questions about a new model for the city, which shares with the three previous ones an acknowledgement of the urban reality: the city is what exists, and it should also be read from a perspective that is at once critical and projective, effective and visionary.
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