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Home » Pontifical Lateran University
Projects

Pontifical Lateran University

King Roselli creates a miraculously soaring and luminous reading room for Rome's Pontifical Lateran University

October 19, 2007
Paul Bennett
KEYWORDS Rome
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Architects & Firms

King Roselli Architetti

Rome, Italy

People/Products

People have been living in Rome, the longest continually inhabited place on the planet, for the past 3,000 years. Every square inch of the city has, at some point, been the site of a building, road, or park—and most inches have seen all three—making space hard to come by. So, when the directors of the Pontifical Lateran University, one of Rome’s Vatican-sponsored institutes of higher learning, needed to build a reading room for its library, they immediately thought of how little land they could spare and how much they needed to squeeze onto it.

Pontifical Lateran University
Photography © Santi Caleca

Enter King Roselli Architetti, a young, English-Italian partnership that shook up Rome’s rather static architectural scene in 2003 with its ES Hotel, now a Radisson SAS, near the Termini train station. Beyond ES’s much publicized flourishes—including a Philippe Starck–inspired interior with custom furnishings—it proved the firm’s ability to complete a major project in a city that has interminably delayed, if not entirely thwarted, an impressive roster of architects. (Notable examples include Richard Meier, with both the Ara Pacis and Jubilee Church, and Rem Koolhaas, with his still-unbuilt shopping center, just beyond the city’s ancient walls.) Adding to Rome’s spatial constraints, its typically uneven or shoddy construction practices, coupled with a subterranean layer full of valuable antiquities, can make the city a tough place to practice.

At Lateran University, the natural inclination was to build upward. But there, too, the architects encountered obstacles. Local historic-preservation zoning laws kept their facade from rising above the existing four-story building. (A later allowance permitted only the reading room’s back wall to poke a couple of feet above the old elevation it now abuts.) Pressure from so many different sides can cause an object to topple or implode—but here, perhaps it helped inspire the new library’s architectural solution: a brick structure that virtually shifts and teeters like a tower of books. “This building is about movement,” says Jeremy King, who founded the firm with partner Ricardo Roselli. “It’s the idea of things stacked, about to fall.”

From the exterior, the 2,000-square-foot addition subtly melds with its context, while starkly distinguishing itself from it. With the same long, narrow brown brick (itself proportionally derivative of the ancient Roman version) and clean, simple lines and geometry as the 1930s building, the reading library blends in neatly—at first glance. But then you notice how its tilted volumes, cantilevered as if suspended in air, deconstruct the box’s straightforward geometry, making a strong 21st-century statement.


People

Architect
King Roselli Architetti
Largo dei Ginnasi, 2
00186 Roma
tel +3906 68210551
fax +3906 68301742

Partner in charge
Riccardo Roselli

Project architect
Andrea Ricci

collaborators:
Giandomenico Florio, Ulich Grosse, Christina Hoffmann, Arianna Nobile, Enrica Testi, Katia Scarioni, Toyohiko Yamaguchi

Structure:
Proges Engineering- Andrea and Pierfrancesco Imbrenda

Service Engineering:
Ovidio Nardi

Electrical Engineering:
Donato Budano

Lighting Design:
iGuzzini, Massimiliano Baldieri

Site Management:
Vatican Authorities- Technical Services- Enrico Sebastiani

Contract Manager
Fabrizio Castellani

General contractor
C.P.C.- Technodir

Subcontractors/suppliers:
For the Library: Interior furniture and finishes in wood, glass and metalwork- Devoto Arredamenti

Venetian floors: Ricordi
Lighting: iGuzzini, Baldieri Illuminazione

For the Auditorium:
Seating (to a King Roselli design)
Poltona Frau

Stage area, Main Entrance Doors, cloakroom
Novarreda

Side-wall paneling
Contin (Estel)

Foyer Doors:
Maestri del Legno

Lighting:
iGuzzini
Baldieri Illuminazione

Photography:
Santi Caleca sas
3 via Comelico
20135 Milano Italia
tel.fax: +039 (02) 55195215
e-mail: S.Caleca@fastwebnet.it

José King
90 Gloucester St (flat B)
London  SW 1 V 4ED, UK
tel.+44 207 834 3040
e-mail: josek@freeuk.com

 

 

Products

Exterior Cladding

Subcontractors/suppliers:
For the Library:
Interior furniture and finishes in wood, glass and metalwork- Devoto Arredamenti

Venetian floors:
Ricordi

Lighting:
iGuzzini, Baldieri Illuminazione

For the Auditorium:
Seating (to a King Roselli design)
Poltona Frau

Stage area, Main Entrance Doors, cloakroom
Novarreda

Side-wall paneling
Contin (Estel)

Foyer Doors:
Maestri del Legno

Lighting:
iGuzzini, Baldieri Illuminazione

Exterior cladding

Brick- Handmade

Roofing

Metal and flashings:
Copper Tecu Oxid

Windows

Aluminum
Auditorium:
Tecnal- Unicity

Glazing Library

Glass:
Illi Serramenti

Skylights:
Illi Serramenti

Doors

Entrances glass:
Illi Serramenti

Foyer Doors:
Maestri del Legno

Main Entrance Doors,auditorium
Novarreda-Dino Giammaria

Fire-control doors:
Padilla

Hardware

Locksets:
I
seo

Hinges:
Geze/Hafele

Closers:
Geze

Exit signs:
Baldieri Illuminazione

Pulls:
Cisa

Security devices:
Hafele

Interior finishes

Suspended ceilings:
Knauf

Suspension grid:
Knauf

Cabinetwork and custom woodwork:
Devoto Arredamenti

Paints:
Viero

Paneling auditorium:
Contin (Estel)

Plastic laminate:
Print Abet

Special surfacing:
Flooring wood (Auditorium):
ipé

Flooring (Library)veneziano-terrazzo:
Ricordi

Flooring Reading Platforms library: mahogany finger jointed block board Piarotto

Resilient flooring-offices:
PVC- Liuni

Furnishings

Reception furniture:
Devoto Arredamenti

Fixed seating auditorium:(to a King Roselli design)
Poltona Frau

Chairs
Devoto Arredamenti

Tables
Devoto Arredamenti -mahogany finger jointed block board

Other furniture
metal shelving, reception desk, computer table, professors reading area, card files

Devoto Arredamenti

Lighting

Interior ambient lighting:
iGuzzini
Baldieri Illuminazione

Downlights:
iGuzzini
Baldieri Illuminazione

Task lighting:
iGuzzini
Baldieri Illuminazione

Exterior:
iGuzzini
Baldieri Illuminazione

Controls:
iGuzzini

Conveyance

Elevators/Escalators:
Kone/Auros

Plumbing

Geberit

 

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