Rick Steve’s End of Year message, illustrated with my sketches of the bridges of Rome’s Tiber river, launched a hopeful message about the importance of building bridges and not erecting walls. Bridges are indeed a strong symbol of outreach, of communication and connection. They have other connotations too, though. Bridges provide shelter for the disenfranchised (such as the many immigrants arriving in Italy from troubled zones of the planet). They …
This holiday season I decided to go out and draw Rome’s bridges, making a small watercolor for twelve of the 24 Tiber river crossings from Testaccio to Flaminio and compiling them into a meter-long folding print, complete with information on each bridge. The original drawings and the foldouts are both available for sale at the bookshop “Antica Libreria Cascianelli” near Piazza Navona, where we held an interesting reception last week. …
Join us for an informal bilingual discussion about Rome, its resources and challenges, its magic and mundanity, the hourly headaches and the monthly miracles. Architect Tom Rankin is author of the book Rome Works: An Architect Explores the World’s Most Resilient City and the blog Sustainable Rome sustainablerome.net and former Director of the association TEVERETERNO which realized William Kentridge’s Triumphs and Laments. Images will be show, refreshments will be served. …
A short video I made to document the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.
TRA_20 has been helping out this month with the excavation in the Roman Forum led by our colleagues at ISAR, the International Society for Archaeology, Art and Architecture of Rome (in which Tom Rankin is a founding member). Here is a short video about the project, titled Signum Vortumni.
For years I have been following the vicissitudes of Massimiliano Fuksas’ EUR project, dubbed “the Cloud” and it has now officially been completed. Rather, it has been inaugurated, which in Italy is not always the same thing as completion. In fact, multiple inaugurations are common, getting maximum mileage out of any big project, which makes perfect sense. I saw the projected inaugurated with the groundbreaking in around 2000. I have …
We are thankful to our friend Cinzia Abbate (Studio AeV Abbate e Vigevano Architetti Associati) for organizing the exhibition “Architecture in Namibia. Archaeology of the future: tomorrow’s architectural landscape”, from 15 November until 2 December, 2016 at Casa dell’Architettura. The exhibition opens with a conference (in English) on Tue 15 November (3:00-8:00 pm) on the themes raised in the exhibition. Register to participate (and receive professional credits) at the following link: …
One of a short series of architectural videos looking at some of Rome’s hidden treasures. This video is about San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, one of the churches built by Constantine outside the walls.
Reflecting, after the earthquake in Central Italy, about the country’s ecological risks Shortly after the 2009 earthquake in l’Aquila I was invited to attend a meeting of the Commissione Nazionale Grandi Rischi, part of Italy’s civil protection organization. The subject was calamities, whether environmental or anthropic, and how to prepare and respond. My take-away from this meeting was that the four phases of calamities are quite clear but our memories are short and …
TEVERETERNO Director Tom Rankin, a long-time friend of Tevereterno and supporter of its efforts to reactivate Rome’s urban riverfront, has announced that he is stepping down in order to dedicate time to other projects and teaching. During Tom’s three-year period in office the organization grew dramatically, establishing for the first time a tangible local headquarters in Rome and a strong public presence globally. “The highlight of my tenure,” Rankin states, “was …