Vertical Village on the River Tiber
During the 9-month stay at the British Academy I worked
on a conceptional project for a self-sufficient vertical
village opposite the Castel Sant'Angelo.
The River Tiber is badly polluted. The introduction of a
large natural wetland to filter the river water was proposed.
The natural flow of the water was tunneled through the base
of the building housing inline water turbines to generate
electricity. Some of the floors were used for indoors vertical
farming. The buildings vertical surface was covered in a
series of small horisontal water harvesting gutters for
collecting clean drinking water other than the polluted
Tiber's water.
A visiting Professor by the name of Alberto Alessi from a
University in Zurich Switzerland wrote the article below
commenting on the scheme. www.albertoalessi.com
During the 9-month stay at the British Academy I worked
on a conceptional project for a self-sufficient vertical
village opposite the Castel Sant'Angelo.
The River Tiber is badly polluted. The introduction of a
large natural wetland to filter the river water was proposed.
The natural flow of the water was tunneled through the base
of the building housing inline water turbines to generate
electricity. Some of the floors were used for indoors vertical
farming. The buildings vertical surface was covered in a
series of small horisontal water harvesting gutters for
collecting clean drinking water other than the polluted
Tiber's water.
A visiting Professor by the name of Alberto Alessi from a
University in Zurich Switzerland wrote the article below
commenting on the scheme. www.albertoalessi.com
Strangers at home. Strategies for a non-habitual inhabitance in Rome
"Sir: You are desired to proceed to Georgetown where you will find Mr. Ellicott employed in making a survey and Map of the Federal
Territory. T/Il' special object of asking your aid is to have a drawing of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of
the Federal town and buildings. You will therefore be pleased to begin on the Eastern branch and proceed from thence upwards,
laying down the hills, va/leys, morasses and waters between that and the Potomac, the Tiber, and the road leading from Georgetown
to the Eastern branch and connecting the whole with certain fixed points on the map Mr. Ellicott is preparing. Some idea of the height
of the lands above the base on which they stand would be
desirable.I will beg the favour of you to mark to me your progress about twice a week, say every Wednesday and Saturday evening,
that I may be able in proper time to draw your attention to some other objects which I have not at this moment sufficient information
to define."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French architect, author of the master plan for Washington D.C., 1791
BEFORE ANY ClTY OR ARCHITECTURE exists, there is a geography, a topography, a climate, a possibility. ln Rome
as in Washington, someone saw a place rich in plains, hills and water, studied its features and position, recognised its
potential, and thus opened the way for a history. ln particular Rome, unlike its city colonies, accepted the weight of its
natural territory as its given foundation, structuring itself according to a topological discourse.
What applies to the act of foundation, also applies to the evolution which followed. Migration, always a cultural event,
plays a fundamental role in the redefinition of an acknowledged urban meaning.
Each new citizenship, even a temporary one, proposes another system of settlement, a multiplication of the space-city, a
new mental sky/ine. Only the Piedmontese, with the building of the Esquilino quarter, will bring to the Rome city plan a
regular grid structure, in accordance to their military Turinese Romaness.
The inhabitant of a place often has routines, habits, conventions that prevent aware vision. One takes for granted what is
only a custom, a way of being-in-the-world. An external, foreign point of view often seizes on the structures of urban
rea/ity better than a city's own inhabitants are able to. This depends on the traveller not having a Baedeker, not having
prejudice, nor the will to state that what they are seeing corresponds to what the tourist brochures anticipated and
promised.
Those who come from elsewhere may also misinterpret, willingly or through ignorance. It is a potentially fruitful
unawareness, because it allows one to pose all the questions and therefore the answers without taking anything for
granted or established. What is this city? What are the structural elements or the place? How do we choose them in our
daily inhabitance?
Those who come from elsewhere have always been here. The oh so Roman obelisks are Egyptian; the Caestian
Pyramid is but an imitation of much grander ones; the domes were born elsewhere; Hadrian's Villa celebrates the
nostalgia of the faraway, witnessed and dreamed. The construction of the city took place through the appropriation and
re-interpretation of parts or things belonging to others, in the projection of images that were foreign.
Those who come from elsewhere can continue to speculate on the presence of the past as a point of view and
rediscover the persistence of a geography and its possibilities, underneath deposits of habits. This contribution to an
urban consciousness-raising, beyond any self-congratulation, is very apparent in both the work and the thinking of the
two resident architects at the British school.
Jaco Booyens turns his attention away from the mythical and museum role of the city and he sees it as a purely natural
place. In this he instinctively belongs to the above mentioned unawareness. ln his description of the urban site for his
Self-Sustainable Vertical Village on the Tiber, Rome becomes a river inlet, with specific features of exposure and
position. Rome is beyond Romaness, and one can speculate on the 'here and now' and on the 'here and then' in equal
terms. This is something that has already happened in other historical epochs. Booyens researches the geographical
context hidden in the holds of the city, proposes architecture as a synergy between place, building and inhabitant: a
building which influences the life of those who live in it and adapts these lives to this Rome-before Rome. Architecture is
the result of a series or carerull considerations regarding a self-sustainable use of energy, the efficient functioning of the
natural systems of energy supply, the implications of low impact technology on the environment. Involuntarily and
paradoxically, this creates an object with a powerful visual impact. A new totem, a fantastic, unconscious, primitive
monument rises from the Tiber. The contemporary inhabitance questions the consolidated system of persistence,
warping its context, mixing it up with other types of mental space. lt reworks the public/private relationship and its
perception according to continually evolving structures. Whoever comes from outside is able to point out the autonomy
of vision, beyond the social and historical meanings of a pIace.
© alberto alessi www.albertoalessi.com
"Sir: You are desired to proceed to Georgetown where you will find Mr. Ellicott employed in making a survey and Map of the Federal
Territory. T/Il' special object of asking your aid is to have a drawing of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of
the Federal town and buildings. You will therefore be pleased to begin on the Eastern branch and proceed from thence upwards,
laying down the hills, va/leys, morasses and waters between that and the Potomac, the Tiber, and the road leading from Georgetown
to the Eastern branch and connecting the whole with certain fixed points on the map Mr. Ellicott is preparing. Some idea of the height
of the lands above the base on which they stand would be
desirable.I will beg the favour of you to mark to me your progress about twice a week, say every Wednesday and Saturday evening,
that I may be able in proper time to draw your attention to some other objects which I have not at this moment sufficient information
to define."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French architect, author of the master plan for Washington D.C., 1791
BEFORE ANY ClTY OR ARCHITECTURE exists, there is a geography, a topography, a climate, a possibility. ln Rome
as in Washington, someone saw a place rich in plains, hills and water, studied its features and position, recognised its
potential, and thus opened the way for a history. ln particular Rome, unlike its city colonies, accepted the weight of its
natural territory as its given foundation, structuring itself according to a topological discourse.
What applies to the act of foundation, also applies to the evolution which followed. Migration, always a cultural event,
plays a fundamental role in the redefinition of an acknowledged urban meaning.
Each new citizenship, even a temporary one, proposes another system of settlement, a multiplication of the space-city, a
new mental sky/ine. Only the Piedmontese, with the building of the Esquilino quarter, will bring to the Rome city plan a
regular grid structure, in accordance to their military Turinese Romaness.
The inhabitant of a place often has routines, habits, conventions that prevent aware vision. One takes for granted what is
only a custom, a way of being-in-the-world. An external, foreign point of view often seizes on the structures of urban
rea/ity better than a city's own inhabitants are able to. This depends on the traveller not having a Baedeker, not having
prejudice, nor the will to state that what they are seeing corresponds to what the tourist brochures anticipated and
promised.
Those who come from elsewhere may also misinterpret, willingly or through ignorance. It is a potentially fruitful
unawareness, because it allows one to pose all the questions and therefore the answers without taking anything for
granted or established. What is this city? What are the structural elements or the place? How do we choose them in our
daily inhabitance?
Those who come from elsewhere have always been here. The oh so Roman obelisks are Egyptian; the Caestian
Pyramid is but an imitation of much grander ones; the domes were born elsewhere; Hadrian's Villa celebrates the
nostalgia of the faraway, witnessed and dreamed. The construction of the city took place through the appropriation and
re-interpretation of parts or things belonging to others, in the projection of images that were foreign.
Those who come from elsewhere can continue to speculate on the presence of the past as a point of view and
rediscover the persistence of a geography and its possibilities, underneath deposits of habits. This contribution to an
urban consciousness-raising, beyond any self-congratulation, is very apparent in both the work and the thinking of the
two resident architects at the British school.
Jaco Booyens turns his attention away from the mythical and museum role of the city and he sees it as a purely natural
place. In this he instinctively belongs to the above mentioned unawareness. ln his description of the urban site for his
Self-Sustainable Vertical Village on the Tiber, Rome becomes a river inlet, with specific features of exposure and
position. Rome is beyond Romaness, and one can speculate on the 'here and now' and on the 'here and then' in equal
terms. This is something that has already happened in other historical epochs. Booyens researches the geographical
context hidden in the holds of the city, proposes architecture as a synergy between place, building and inhabitant: a
building which influences the life of those who live in it and adapts these lives to this Rome-before Rome. Architecture is
the result of a series or carerull considerations regarding a self-sustainable use of energy, the efficient functioning of the
natural systems of energy supply, the implications of low impact technology on the environment. Involuntarily and
paradoxically, this creates an object with a powerful visual impact. A new totem, a fantastic, unconscious, primitive
monument rises from the Tiber. The contemporary inhabitance questions the consolidated system of persistence,
warping its context, mixing it up with other types of mental space. lt reworks the public/private relationship and its
perception according to continually evolving structures. Whoever comes from outside is able to point out the autonomy
of vision, beyond the social and historical meanings of a pIace.
© alberto alessi www.albertoalessi.com
