TERRAIN VAGUE: THE TIBER RIVER VALLEY Beatrice Bruscoli [email protected] Figure 1: Bridge on Via del Foro Italico looking downstream Rome, the Eternal City, continues to be Rome—to really begin to know the an active model and exemplary location city—we must walk through it, taking to study and understand the dynamic our time. Arriving at a gate in the transformations taking place in contem- Aurelian Wall, we cross the threshold porary landscapes. In the process of and enter the Campagna (countryside) becoming “eternal,” Rome has been that surrounds Rome just as it has for continually—often radically—altered, millenea. while conserving its primordial image; Looking through the multitude of renewing itself over time, without losing images, paintings, and plans of Rome, its deeply rooted structure. we cannot help but notice that its Before urban form, forma urbis, primary characteristics have remained there is natural form. As Christian distinct and constant over the centuries. Norberg-Schultz informs us, the genius Gianbattista Nolli’s “La Pianta Grande loci of Rome does not reside in some di Roma” of 1748 is the city’s most abstract geometric order or a formalized well-known representation.2 (Plan 1) architectural space, but in the close and This remarkable figure-ground map continuous ties between buildings, voids, presents us with a view of Rome; of a and the natural landscape.1 Rome’s dense compact area of inhabitation, forma urbis was generated and shaped dotted with piazzas and courtyards, and by the natural morphology of its land- surrounded with vast unbuilt areas all scape. Thus, to more fully understand lying within the city walls. The urban THE WATERS OF ROME: NUMBER 10, APRIL 2016 1 voids, which include streets, piazzas, fabric, and also in its outlying zones of church interiors, palace courtyards, and uninhabited land, the disabitato, where small gardens are its essence. This is true the landscape, even if domesticated, has in the city’s dense core, the abitato, not been romanticized but appears as a where public spaces dominate the urban more natural environment. Plan 1: La Pianta Grande di Roma, Gianbattista Nolli, 1748 The forma urbis seen in the Nolli radiating out from the historic center, plan is the result of centuries of aban- through the city gates, and initially, donment that unintentionally contains along the ancient consular roads. This traces of the profound ties between the pattern has absorbed vast portions of the city and its original landscape, a condi- Roman Campagna, creating voids that tion that defined its consecutive and continue to dominate the morphology of over-lapping phases of urban develop- the city. This remains its fundamental ment, including modern-day Rome: a figure. Viewing Rome from above, multiform and polycentric archipelago; a perhaps through the eye of Google metropolis of tentacles and islands of Earth, we see a collection of fragments, development. an archipelago of differences, of divided, The city has expanded well beyond disconnected and dispersed urban the historic margins of its ancient walls; centralities. (Plan 2) THE WATERS OF ROME: NUMBER 10, APRIL 2016 2 Plan 2: Aerial view of Rome with the Tiber River and the Roman Campagna. Google Earth screen capture, 17 July 2015. The modern city grew without pressures, the increasing cost of living in conforming to the social and economic the historic center, cheaper suburban expectations of urban planners. Rather, land, and forced removals under its twentieth-century transformation is an Mussolini (and other urban renewal historic amalgam of anarchy, property plans), together created an inhospitable speculation, and well-documented com- environment that forced Romans to plicity between developers, politicians, move far outside their walls to reside in and individual economic interests. uncontrolled sprawl. This unchecked Rome’s urban planners have churned urbanization has expanded Rome’s out several comprehensive master plans territorial influence to engulf large since the beginning of the century; portions of its region, Lazio. including the SanJust plan of 1908, This forced evacuation from the Mussolini’s 1931 variant of his own center has resulted in fragmentary 1925 plan, and the 1962 version with typological development: there are two “Varianti di Piano,” ammendments; primarily residential zones, which are of 1967 and 1974. Each plan involved fundamentally embryonic traditional years of discussion before reaching neighborhoods; other zones are basically approval and implementation. Mean- large shopping and recreational centers; while entire swaths of the city’s perifery there are also military districts; and were built following outdated ordinances finally, technological and industrial or in total disregard of existing laws. areas. Since many developments origi- Even as these plans included territory nated along Rome’s radial streets— beyond Rome’s walls, they were still emanating from the historic center— focused on the historic urban core. there are large swathes of undeveloped But over the last century, market areas, parks, and designated open space. THE WATERS OF ROME: NUMBER 10, APRIL 2016 3 Plan 3: Piano Regolatore General, 2008, Ambiti di progrmmaione strategica; quadro di unione. THE WATERS OF ROME: NUMBER 10, APRIL 2016 4 Unlike earlier plans, the 2008 Nuovo of large centralities. At the second level Piano Regolatore di Roma, Rome’s the plan proposes a recomposition of the newest master plan (the process began in existing city fabric in the Campagna—at 1994), represents a critical paradigm present frayed and almost completely shift.3 No longer a monocentric devoid of urban substance—with planning model defined from the inside projects that clearly separate and define out—that is, from the historical center margins, which can then be re-stitched surrounded by a residential periphery— together. (Plan 3) the new plan proposes a multipolar and It is important to highlight how the polycentric development strategy. Rome, 2008 Master Plan confronts and as envisioned in the new plan is a city centralizes the system of voids by without limits, physical restrictions, or rendering the landscape as a “natural edges. It is a city in which the voids— network” that connects and structures the absence of density—take on a the archipelago of fragments. The distinctive new role. In this plan the system of natural spaces becomes a voids will be the glue that holds the city continuous infrastructure that can be together; they will provide the foun- crossed, integrating road and rail dation for Rome’s new infrastructure connections. and its future development. The overall result of the various A critical element of the 2008 plan, decision making processes related to the as defined by Rome’s municipal govern- development of the Master Plan has led ment, is to protect the city’s environ- to the protection of over 82,000 hectares mental systems. To do this the plan (about 203,000 acres), some sixty-four focuses on recomposing Rome’s percent of the entire municipal territory, physical structure by protecting the to which we must add the 5740 hectares voids and the public and private park- (about 14,200 acres) of land recovered land against incompatible development. inside the historical and consolidated The goal is to facilitate and more fully city. Within the municipal territory of control current and future expansion by 1,290,000 hectares (about 3, 200,000 clearly defining the physical dimensions acres) the 2008 plan identifies approx- of allowed transformations. As envi- imately 87,740 hectares (about 217,000 sioned in the 2008 plan, Rome of the acres) of open spaces to be configured future will be a metropolis of contiguous and stitched together as a continuous centralities, tied together by the protec- ecological network. ted environmental systems and the The forecasts for the Plan are planned mobility network. To accom- encouraging, although some doubt plish this, the plan proposes to compress remains about its viability. In a market Rome’s collection of fragments—this economy, where liberalism appears to be urban archipelago—based on a two- the only applicable model of develop- tiered structure. On one level the plan ment and in a country where urban works at the territorial scale, construc- planning regulations have always come ting a system of parks, modifying under strong attack, it is feared that mobility through the so-called “steel Rome’s transformation will be entrusted cure” [the construction of metropolitan to those who make concrete proposals— rail lines] and implementing the system land owners and speculative developers, THE WATERS OF ROME: NUMBER 10, APRIL 2016 5 industrial interests, global tourism, and The Tiber’s central zone, the raison those who control the vast chains of d'être of the city, that which has nurtured commercial distribution. The question it and ensured its vitality for centuries, is remains; will it be possible to consoli- now separated and invisible from the date the ecological network of open city. Within this densely urbanized area spaces into a resistant planning model? there is a critical need for a coordinated In the meantime, it is necessary to design effort that can help recapture the continue to cross these natural open dynamic qualities that once defined the spaces and pass along the urban river, and encourage the transformation corridors, preferably by walking as the of the river into a new strategic infra- best means to internalize their essential structure that can stimulate processes of qualities. This is especially relevant in recovery, especially along its edges. the Tiber River Valley, which the plan The plan identifies four fundamental identifies as a strategic programming issues for the Tiber’s recovery: 1) the environment, capable of transforming ecological question of the riverbed; 2) the city. increasing mobility along its edges; 3) Under the new plan, the river’s the identification of new functional course is divided into three distinct programs; 4) and the transformation of sectors: 1) the northern part of the the visual relationships between the city metropolitan area, that is, everything and its river.