La ferrovia Roma-Lido e i progetti di Marcello Piacentini per le sue stazioni

The paper pieces together the long and complex business of the railway track that was to link the city of Rome to its seaside. The first frail roots of the Roma–Lido railway date back to the early decades of the 1900s. It wasn’t completed until the Fascist era. A part of the story revolves around the planning and construction of two railway stations, Roma Ostiense and Ostia. The original project was entrusted to Vincenzo Fasolo, before being passed on to Marcello Piacentini the following year. The latter’s projects for both buildings were pretty much identical, with simple linear blocks. Fasolo’s project, on the other hand, had expressed more movement. The stations weren’t to be definitively inaugurated until 1924, by Benito Mussolini. Paolo Orlando’s role is particularly highlighted. He was a politician and engineer very much involved in the attempt to connect the city of Rome with its coastline. Orlando was president of the SMIR, the society that prior to the Fascist era, had been charged with getting Rome to the coast. It was liquidated shortly before the inauguration of the Rome–Ostia railway. The paper also covers some, until now unpublished documentary evidence that has also come to light in the Capitoline archive. They reveal a possible link to the project being entrusted to Piacentini. The architect’s project for Ostia to be parcelled out into small villas was rejected by Orlando himself, it never made it off the drawing board. The final question covers the construction of the stations, especially Roma Ostiense, still standing. It was constructed with impressively modern techniques. These included the use of reinforced concrete for the platform roof, twinned with an interesting modernist array of architectural styles. The two stations are then compared with other railway buildings of the time, and further projects by Piacentini during those years. Some similarities can be found with his architectural designs of the 1910s and ’20s. Here Piacentini’s experimentations appear to be mixed with European influences in his own personal reinterpretation of the architectural vernacular. The result is impressively elegant, and a breath of fresh air in the Italian architectural panorama of those years. (http://www.bollettinodarte.beniculturali.it/opencms/export/BollettinoArteIt/sito-BollettinoArteIt/Contributi/Editoria/BollettinoArte/Abstracts/Serie-VII/Ostia/visualizza_asset.html_10823706.html)

Analisi delle vicende relative alla ferrovia Roma-Lido, della sua storie e della progettazione e costruzione delle sue stazioni progettate da Marcello Piacentini