figure 1: Aeneas and his family fleeing the destruction of Troy. Agostino Carracci, 1595. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

figure 2: Syrian family runs for cover after a bomb destroys their home in Damascus. 2017. Abdulmonam Eassa/AFP.

A E N E U MCentro di Asilo • Asylum Center

ARCH4202 • 5 credits • MWF 2–5:15 • Jeff Balmer, instructor, Rome studio

Objectives

This studio investigates architecture as a social utility within the contemporary city.

We propose a new civic landmark within the ancient center of Rome. Responding to the wholly inadequate infrastructural response to mass migration throughout the Mediterranean, our project calls for the foundation of a new public facility, centrally located and emphatically visible to citizens and visitors alike. We envision an effective, efficient, and egalitarian social center, one designed to enhance the orientation and acclimation of newcomers, and to concretize a public commitment to confronting the global scourge of war, famine, and the climate crisis, primary accelerants of mass migration in the twenty-first century.

This studio examines how history and cultural memory might inform and enrich our contemplation of contemporary challenges at an urban and global scale.

Our project is premised on the ancient Roman principles of inclusion and integration. We invoke the tradition of Xenia, the essential practice of hospitality observed throughout the cultures of antiquity. We invoke the spirit of Romulus, mythic founder of Rome, whose temple of Asylum established the idea of the city as an open & expansive collective. And we invoke the legend of Aeneas – survivor of the Sack of Troy – whose wanderings across the Meditteranean, and eventual arrival at the mouth of the Tiber as a refugee, evinced the ethos of Rome’s origins and future greatness, a culture premised on collectivity and diversity.

This studio confronts the challenge of designing contemporary architecture within

an urban environment that is deeply layered – literally and figuratively.

Rome is a modern metropolis blessed (and perhaps cursed) with a multitude of mythical, historical, cultural and archeological layers: it confronts the architect with the opportunity (and the challenge) of inserting a new element within its rich, living, matrix – a global city of the twenty-first century, yet yielding ever-present parallels with the cultural practices of its ancient origins. Our project site exemplifies this complexity: located along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, it incorporates integral traces of the ancient, Renaissance, and contemporary city. Simultaneously, as site of Terragni’s

unbuilt Danteum project, it conjures the legacy of Christian and Fascist ideologies.

Structure

Students will organize themselves into teams of 3, and will work both collaboratively and in tandem to produce a design proposal over the course of the semester.

The work of the project will span a series of six phases, each accompanied by a specific set of guidelines. Work in progress will be conducted through pinups and desk-crits. Phases will conclude with presentations, group pin-ups, and/or formal reviews. Final submission will comprise a formatted template for exhibition purposes.

figure 3: Aeneas landing at Pallentum, Claude Lorrain, 1677. Royal Collection Trust (UK).

figure 4: Shipwreck of Aeneas – Neptune calming the winds, Giulio Bonasone, circa 1550. Metropolitan Museum.

figure 5: Aeneas pouring wine into the sea in Gratitude for his Arrival in Italy. Plate 11 of L’Enea Vagante Pitture dei Caracci, etching by G.M. Mitelli, 1663. deYoung Museum.

figure 6: Crew member of Ocean Viking rescuing 39 aboard raft near Malta, August 9, 2019. AFP/Getty Images.

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figure 7: Site Axonometric showing current state of site.

figure 8: Site Axonometric showing Danteum project site.

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figure 9: Danteum, original watercolor, Terragni, 1938.

figure 10: Danteum, digital rendering of Via del Impero facade.