All posts tagged italian architecture
Roberto Cavalli's house: Italian architecture and design
Roberto Cavalli’s luxury Italian villa in Tuscany has been renovated by Italian architect Italo Rota, who has fitted the house with metallic sheets and decorative motifs. The metallic “lace” covers the facade and was made in Italy specifically for Cavalli. The cut-out sheet is styled to look like a hung fabric.
The laser-worked side panels in stainless steel can create any kind of design, evoking flowers and organic shapes, which give a changeable effect to the house in the resulting play of light. The panels are electronically operated and can be opened and closed further contributing to the mozaic effect of light and blurring the lines of functionality and style with the structure of the house.
Roberto Cavalli luxury villa design
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Milan by night: the roof of the Vittorio Emanuele gallery
These beautiful pictures of the city of Milan by night come from 02blog.it and show the Vittorio Emanuele II gallery lit up. Walking the roof of Milan’s duomo is famous, but doing so on the galleria gives you a new perspective altogether of the Duomo (looking like a scale model), and the impressive architecture and iron structure that is the gallery itself. The building was designed by Italian architect Giuseppe Mengoni and was built in 1865. It remains today one of Milan’s favourite places for locals and tourists alike.
Milan by Night: Galleria Vittorio Emanuele
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Day trips from Rome: Tivoli, Hadrian's Villa and the Villa d'Este
After Tivoli celebrated its Sagra delli ghiozzi, it was time to take a closer look at the area and what it offers for a weekend tour from Rome. The town itself features a 15th century fort called the Rocca Pia and the town centre is a lovely spot to wander about in. Moving further afield, you will find the Villa Adriana or Hadrian’s Villa, and Villa d’Este, important examples of Italian architecture from the area.
The Villa Adriana was built by Emperor Hadrian between 118 and 138 AD and is a mix of monumental buildings, gardens, thermal springs, libraries, theatres and temples. The area measures about 300 hectares and Hadrian borrowed ideas for the construction of the buildings and grounds from his various travels around the empire’s provinces.
The Villa d’Este is famous for being a masterpiece of Italian gardens and water features. It has one of Europe’s most impressive baroque gardens with terraces fashioned in something that reflects what the Babylon gardens might have been. It also includes examples of famous Roman engineering with its acqueduct and underground tunnels. You can get to Tivoli via bus routes from Rome which take up to an hour.
Photo | Flickr
Piazza san Pietro restored to white: St Peter's back to Bernini's vision
The Vatican will get a restoration job soon, with St Peter’s square being restored to what is described as the original idea from Bernini from the 1600’s. From the Carlo Magno corridor to Costantino the ochre finish on the ground, applied in the 1800’s will be taken off, and restored to white.
The decision has been made on finding a document in the Vatican archives that attests to Bernini’s original vision for Piazza san Pietro. Technicians and restoration experts have done analyses of the square, and found below the ochre finish a white surface that should have been the original. The work is expected to take about five years, in which time restoration works will also be completed on the 140 statues and 244 columns in the piazza.
Milan skyline from Italy's tallest building
See the skyline of Milan in this video taken at the top of Italy’s tallest skyscraper, the “Altra Sede” of the Lombardy regional government. While not tall by world standards, the tower is 39 stories high and 161 metres tall. It’s 32 metres taller than Italy’s second highest building, the Telecom tower in Naples.
Milan will soon have a new building that will lay claim to Italy’s tallest skyscraper, when building of the “Dritto”, for the 2015 Expo in Milan, will be completed. It will measure 220 metres tall and will be something for native Milanese to be proud of in a city famous for its commerce, and symbolic of northern Italian history.
Postcards from Italy: Santa Chiara cloister in Naples
The Santa Chiara cloister in Naples can’t strictly be called a cloister, which you would normally consider as a dark, hushed religious area. In the style of the sunny city of Naples, this particular specimen is an open-air cloister, beautifully tiled and decorated in true Campanian style.
The Santa Chiara Cloister was founded in 1310 next to a gothic basilica, but it was significantly restyled in the mid-18th century, when the cloister got its exotic, vibrant redecoration. It underwent more restoration in 1943 after bombing and was completed in a gothic, rather than baroque style. For more pictures of the beautiful tiles, see Italiannotebook.com.
Touring Italy: Pescara bridge cycling or walking
Pescara’s new Ponte del Mare, by architect Walter Pichler, is one of those civil engineering feats that combines practicality with tourism appeal. The long bridge offering a cycling and walking path, unites both shores of Pescara’s river. The two paths start together on the shores, and then fork either side of the huge pylon in the middle.
The new Pescara bridge is 440 metres long for cyclists and 465 metres long for walkers. It is lit up at night, providing an atmospheric touch, and the central pylon changes colour. To see more of the bridge, including images from its construction, see the Ponte del Mare website of Pescara’s city council. More building is to be undertaken in the area, including the “museo del mare”, or maritime museum, which should also be built in a similar modern style. You can reach Pescara by train, try the bus from Rome or fly direct to the Pescara airport, which now also flies Ryanair.
Touring Rome: rare visits to art and archaeological sites
Some of Rome’s architectural and historic treasures are being opened for special guided tours run by Italy’s environmental organisation, FAI. Places such as the Temple of the “Ninfe” and “Porta Asinaria” will open for rare, free guided tours by FAI.
The first, which started in October, will be followed by one on November 21st to “La Sala degli Stucchi del Teatro Marcello” (Marcello Theatre), then next year in February a visit to the Argentina Theatre will be conducted. That will be followed by the last tour to “La Casina del Cardinal Bessarione” in April.
For full details on how to see these rare examples of art and archaeology in Rome, see the FAI website.
Exploring Rome's districts: Garbatella and St Paul's outside the walls
If you’ve been to Rome, you’ve probably toured the area of Garbatella without even knowing it. This area of Rome is home to the lovely basilica of St Paul’s outside the walls, or “San Paolo fuori le mura”. If you’ve never been, this is one Italian church you don’t want to miss for its stunning mosaics. There are many churches to visit in Rome, but if you’re prioritising this should sit somewhere high up the list.
The area of Garbatella has a mixed history, and no-one is really sure of the origin of the name. The most popular theory is that it was named after a woman, and a fountain in Piazza Ricoldo da Montecroce would seem to attest to this. The fountain has since been rebaptised “the fountain of lovers” and is topped by a statue of a woman.
The Garbatella district was originally a “garden city”, planned by the king in 1920 to house the workers that would be building the new city port. Much of the green space and small villas then gave way to fascist buildings and architecture. Using the old theatre cinemaTeatro Palladium as your landmark, you can almost lose yourself in this corner of Rome.
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Rome to host Architecture Festival
The 2009 Rome Architecture festival which aims to assist people in understanding the change taking place to our cities and how that change will influence our lives will be inaugurated on September 8. Paolo Soleri´s lectio magistralis on La frugalità elegante will start the festival at 4pm, while the much awaited exhibition Cities, Places visionaires - curated by Camilla Boemio will open its doors to the public some 2 hours later. The exhibition will feature works by some famous cityscape photographers such as Gabriele Basilico, Damir Ocko, Dmitry Gutov, Marco Zanta, Michael Wolf, Peter Schloer and Shaun Gladwell. Then on October 3 another important event called Rome Nome Plurale di Città will be held at the Casa dell´Architettura. It is anticipated that many eminent architects will attend this event.
Italy's most popular churches
Travel portal Trivago, for the Church month of May, has published the most appreciated basilicas, cathedrals and churches in Italy. The top ten churches of Italy are based on the number of internet searches completed in March and April of this year on the Trivago site.
To test your knowledge of Italian churches, we’ve put up the photos of the top ten, most of which are so well known, you shouldn’t have any problems identifying them. The “solution” is after the jump.
All photos from Flickr, from Allie_Caulfield, Mypoorbrain, freshwater2006, Bruce_of_Oz, barb_ar, Roby Ferrari and Wiki Commons.
After the Just Cavalli Cafè in Milan, Cavalli Club in Florence in opens
The first Cavalli Club has been inaugurated in Florence, with Roberto Cavalli from Just Cavalli fashion house opening the fashionable club on Saturday. The project is from architect Italo Rota, who designed the Just Cavalli Cafè in Milan, and is a new concept on night life in Italy.
Roberto Cavalli says he wanted to give a gift to the city of Florence, his city, by restoring some of the antique splendors of the city. The former church is a perfect place to mix the past with the future, “uniting tradition and innovation, inside which I built a futuristic club, which was missing in Florence.”
The Cavalli Club is a kind of floating boat inside the external, original architectural shell. It is a large mirror object made from gold and steel that contains a bar, restaurant and the rest. It doesn’t touch the walls and can be dismounted. The game of reflections and mirrors multiply the space, creating harmony between the historic and contemporary structures.
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