Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana

The draw

It is the most photographed building in Rome that nobody can go into. The "Colosseo Quadrato" takes the Colosseum's tight sequence of arches and repeats it 216 times across four identical elevations — which is why it reads as a single idea rather than a facade.

The inscription is still up there and still legible. "Un popolo di poeti di artisti di eroi di santi di pensatori di scienziati di navigatori di trasmigratori", running round the summit, written for a building meant to hold the Mostra della Civiltà Italiana and then become a permanent museum of Italian civilisation.

And the cinema has used it for eighty years. With its rational and metaphysical architecture it has been the background or a quotation in many films, from Rossellini's Roma città aperta to Antonioni's L'Eclisse, from Fellini's Otto e mezzo to Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect, to Brizzi's Notte prima degli esami.

The friction

• You cannot go in. The building holds the Direction and the offices of Fendi and is open to the public only on the occasion of events and exhibitions.
• No hours and no price are published, because there is no ordinary opening.
• It is out at the EUR, a metro ride from the centre and nothing like it in character.
• It is not what it was designed to be. The exhibition it was built for never took place.

The tactic

Treat the outside as the visit, because it is. Free, permanent, and with four identical elevations there is no wrong approach — stand far enough back to read the inscription and the whole idea is in front of you.

Count a column of arches and multiply. 216 across four faces is six rows of nine on each — the sort of fact that makes a building legible in a glance.

Look at the ground floor, not only the grid. Under the arcades of the first order stand 28 marble statues representing arts and human activities, and at the sides of the two opposed staircases are the four sculptural groups of the Dioscuri by Morbiducci and Felci.

Read the material against the intention. The authors designed it in masonry; it was built in reinforced concrete and faced with slabs of travertine for reasons of economy and time. The travertine is a skin.

Watch for an exhibition. That is the only published route inside, and it is occasional.

Skip it if you:

• Expect to get inside. Only events and exhibitions open it.
• Are short of time in the centre. The EUR is a deliberate trip.
• Have no interest in twentieth-century architecture. That is the entire subject.

People work here. The Palazzo holds the Direction and the offices of Fendi; the doors at the top of the staircases are a company's entrance, not a visitor route.

Read the inscription as a document. "Un popolo di poeti di artisti di eroi di santi di pensatori di scienziati di navigatori di trasmigratori" was written for the Mostra della Civiltà Italiana at a 1942 exposition staged by the regime that built the EUR. It is the building's own statement of purpose, and it is worth reading as one.

The quarter is the context. The building went up within the great urban intervention that led to the building of the EUR quarter; it was designed as its centrepiece and reads differently when you have walked the rest.

The travertine is a facing, not a structure. The slabs clad a reinforced concrete frame adopted for reasons of economy and time — the surface is thinner than it looks.

The sculpture is at hand height. The 28 marble statues stand in the openings of the first-order arcade, within reach from the platform.

You cannot ordinarily go in — it is an office

Turismo Roma states that the Palazzo houses the headquarters of the Maison Fendi, that it holds the Direction and the offices of Fendi, and that it is open to the public on the occasion of events and exhibitions. There are no opening hours and no admission price, because there is no ordinary opening.

The outside is free, permanent and complete

The building stands at the Quadrato della Concordia in the EUR. Because the four elevations are identical, there is no wrong side: the 216 arches, the inscription at the summit, the Dioscuri at the staircases and the 28 statues under the first-order arcades can all be read from the ground, from any direction, at any hour.

What you are looking at

• 216 arches across four identical elevations — the Colosseum quotation that gave it the name "Colosseo Quadrato".
• Reinforced concrete faced with travertine, though the architects designed it in masonry.
• Four Dioscuri groups by Morbiducci and Felci, and 28 marble statues of arts and human activities.
• The inscription for a museum of Italian civilisation that never opened.

Ticket & Pass Decision Matrix

Any hour of any day, for the outside. There is nothing to open: the exterior is free, permanent, and the four identical elevations mean there is no best side to arrive on.

Low sun, for the arches. The facade works by shadow — 216 openings cut through flat travertine — and strong raking light turns it into black and white. Flat cloud flattens it completely.

After dark, for the lit version. The EUR is built around this building, and it is the thing the quarter lights.

When an exhibition is on, if you want inside. That is the only published access: open to the public on the occasion of events and exhibitions.

Allow half an hour. It is one building, seen from outside — but the inscription, the Dioscuri and the 28 statues under the arcades take longer to find than the grid suggests.