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All change in Ostiense?
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Six years ago Rome’s city council gave the go-ahead to plans for the regeneration of the Ostiense area in the south of the city, focusing on the space which was once Rome’s wholesale food market. The main project was for a Città dei Giovani, or City of Youth, but the plans also extended to a new city office building (Campidoglio 2) in the vicinity and two new bridges. Despite announcements that the projects are going ahead, much of the area remains inaccessible and in a state of disuse.
Ostiense is Rome’s oldest industrial area. It contains some of its most important early 20th-century industrial relics including a former gas-plant, general markets, ACEA Centrale Montemartini power plant (now part of the city museums), soap manufacturer, parachute manufacturer, river port and ship testing laboratory.
The original development took place between 1910 and 1926 and for several decades the area played a significant economic role as a thriving commercial and industrial site. By the beginning of the 1970s, however, a new urban plan had emerged and the progressive de-industrialisation of the area began. Since then the territory has fallen into disuse but the remaining industrial structures give it a distinctive character that future developments will have to preserve.
The former general markets
At the end of October work was scheduled to begin on the mercati generali or wholesale food markets on Via Ostiense. In 2004, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas won a competition to transform the ex-markets and at the time the project was praised for a number of features, including a notable cantilevered cuboid structure described as the “square cloud” thanks to the use of translucent materials and suspension techniques. The project was also commended for its overall feeling of layering and space. However, the most recent plans published by the architectural website Urban File show that Koolhaas’s original winning design now looks very different from the original. The “square cloud” has disappeared and has been replaced by a more mundane structure. The large square that lent the project its distinctive fragmented, open design has now been filled in.
Koolhaas’s office was reluctant to comment on the changes, citing its complexity and the interests of the “many stakeholders” involved. Eminent architect Luca Zevi voiced his concerns, saying: “A promise was made to the citizens that the city would get a certain kind of project and now they are proposing something else altogether. They aren’t the normal changes you might expect of any project – it is another project. It has completely changed in nature.”
Two new bridges
In June 2000, architects APsT won the competition for a new footbridge over the Tiber in the Ostiense area within the context of plans for a City of Science on and around the former gasworks land. The bridge, Ponte della Scienza, is to connect the gazometer with Lungotevere dei Papareschi on the west bank. The foundations were laid in October 2008 but technical problems mean that building has stopped while a solution – and money – are found. This is not the only issue, however. The development of the City of Science is also blocked because a large tract of the territory is still owned by Italgas. Until this is sold, and the land subsequently decontaminated and made ready for use, no progress can be made.
In a separate development a bridge for traffic is being built from Via Ostiense to Circonvallazione Ostiense over the train and metro lines. 125 m of its entire 240 m will be in suspension and it will take the form of a large steel arch. The intention is to ease traffic between the two main roads and speed up the time it takes to travel from Via Cristoforo Colombo to Viale Marconi. Work began in May 2009 and should last 12 months.
Campidoglio 2 and the Ostiense Air Terminal
A new town hall building has been planned in Ostiense since 2005, using the old tobacco works behind Circonvallazione Ostiense to rehouse 4,000 council employees in one building, leaving the mayor’s office and staff at the Campidoglio. The project was awarded to Mario Cucinella and Studio Altieri after an international competition organised under the former mayor, Walter Veltroni. The winning proposal featured sustainable energy systems, cantilevered structures crossed with bronze, copper and silver-coloured nets and large garden spaces. However in August this year current mayor Gianni Alemanno stopped the development, citing changes in city finances. The council is now trying to attract private capital and is seeking a new project that is “quick and simple to build”. Cucinella and Altieri have not received their €500,000 prize for winning the competition.
The Ostiense Air Terminal was designed by the Spanish architect Julio Lafuente for the football World Cup in 1990. It was intended to be a public transport hub and connection to Fiumicino airport but it only functioned for a few weeks, outdone by Termini station’s more central and convenient location. For many years it has provided shelter for homeless people; in 2007 the car park became a tent city for over 100 Afghani refugees. There has been talk of the building being integrated into plans for Campidoglio 2 but in June 2009 it was sold to a company called Geal Srl which intends to turn it into a shopping centre. President of the municipality Andrea Catarci has called for a refuge centre for the homeless to be incorporated into the new plans.
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