Ricerc@Sapienza

The competition of 1967 for the new offi ces of the Chamber of Deputies is an
important episode in the Italian architecture of the postwar period, because it
is a rare example of contemporary design in the heart of the city of Rome, both
for the participation of the major Italian exponents, but also for the unusual ex
aequo result which shows the failure of the competition and the heated dispute
of those years about the topic of the city.
The projects of the competition, which are collected in an interesting essay
by Manfredo Tafuri, undoubtedly show the main attention to the architectural
shape of the building and its interior functional program, but through the careful
reading of the projects, it is interesting to see the centrality of urban design as a
generator or, at least, as indispensable strategy for the insertion of the object in
its context.
Following the research project done during the phd program of DRACo school
- Architecture and Construction in La Sapienza University, the paper aims to
deepen the design of urban space before the architectural design which is
present in the projects of the competition of 1967, the different methods and
strategies of design, for example the urban platform by Passarelli, the honorary
column by Polesello, the perspective views of Quaroni and Vaccaro. In this sense
it is crucial to compare these projects and the design of Parliament Square by
Ernesto Basile of 1902.