In Coppede - whimsy let loose

I stumbled across Coppede quite by accident. I was hurrying to work. I got off the number 3 tram on Piazza Buenos Aires and thought I'd take a short cut rather than double back along Viale Regina Margherita. I'd turn down Via Tagliamento and cut across the back streets to Via Serchio where I gave lessons in a rather imposing villa with a large garden. It looked more like a private residence than a private school.

I turned the corner from Viale Regina Margherita into Via Tagliamento, strode past a church and walked into another world. Two enormous turreted dark grey stone buildings stood before me. At their foot was a make-shift parking lot with cars parked messily next to each other interspersed with motorbikes and scooters leaning precariously - a nudge, a strong gust of wind and they would teeter to the ground.

An arch spanned over the road and linked the buildings. A dark iron chandelier dangled down from the centre of the arch. I felt as if I'd walked onto the set of a horror movie, a kind of Gothic noir with a mad woman screaming in the rafters or maybe David Bowie in vampire drag sleeping in a coffin high up in the turret. So I wasn't surprised (after a bit of research) to learn that the horror meister himself, Dario Argento, had used the area in two of his films as had other directors such as Richard Donner, Carlo Vanzina and Francesca Barilli. 

I discovered that these two imposing buildings were the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori (Ambassadors Palaces). In a trance I inched closer to the arch, away from Via Tagliamento unwittingly towards the heart of the area. I passed on my right a statue Madonna con Bambino (Madonna with child). Under the arch I paused to gaze up at the black chandelier.

Two large windows at the back of the arch opened onto an apartment. I could see a large portrait of a woman. e watching the passers-by.

The heart of the area is Piazza Mincio with its central Fontana delle Rane (Fountain of the Frogs - 12 in total - constructed in 1924). The fountain has had its fifteen minutes of fame. The Beatles upon leaving  the nearby Piper Club decided to have some fun and jumped into it.
The Piper Club (owned by sixties diva, Patty Pravo) has been a bone of contention over the years with residents of Coppede claiming that music and associated vibrations have caused damage to the edifices.

Radiating out in all directions from that central fountain are the amazing, slightly demented buildings that make up the area.

But what had Gino Coppede, its architect, been thinking? The area is a mixture of Gothic, Baroque, Art Deco and Liberty with some added Medieval notes and Greek references.  Gino Coppede has been called the Italian Gaudi. A Florentine, he worked most notably in Genoa and Messina. In fact his style is known as style Coppede - it reached its apex here in Rome in a few blocks, comprising around forty structures (villas, buildings and a fountain), built between 1915 and his death ,of lung cancer,in 1927. His son-in-law, the architect Paolo Emilio André completed the project.

The Coppede style has been described as a fusion. Or as the 'Corriere di Genoa' of 1908 said: " he (Coppede) takes the best of what he finds, plays with the different architectural styles and melds them together in his own unique way."

Fontana delle Rane

Although it is referred to as a Quartiere  (an administrative district) it isn't one. It belongs to a larger, affluent area called Parioli.

Most Romans refer to the area as Quartiere Coppede after the architect who created it.

Today I stand beside the central fountain on Piazza Mincio and I walk around it. Its at the centre of a roundabout and cars and scooters rush by, its drivers oblivious or innured to what surrounds them.

On one side there's the 'Palazzo del Ragno' so-called because of the large creepy black spider painted above its entrance. Above the spider, a large stone face gazes out impassively, eyes dead.

Facing this is another key Coppede attraction the Villini delle Fate (Villas of the fairies). Seahorses adorn the wrought iron gates. The facade is decorated with painted scenes - references to Dante and Petrarch - and a nod to the architect's Tuscan origins. On the other side are the Palazzi degli Ambasciatori dark and oppressive, huge stone masses that dwarf the whimsical folly that is the small moss covered fountain by which i stand. 

 The area scares and delights in equal measure. Stone faces and monsters glare out from the facades. I am reminded of the horror classic starring Clare Bloom, "Hill House", I can but imagine inside the 'Palazzo degli Ambasciatori' endless corridors that go nowhere, obtuse corners and dull thudding noises that no one wants to hear in the middle of the night, and people being swallowed up by the vast stone edifices.

Yet, in direct juxtaposition, stand the Villas of the Fairies - cute seahorses and colourful painted Tuscan facades, as if to conjure away the darkness of the buildings which face them.





Seahorses

Gino Coppede was inspired by so many genres. He fused them into his unique style. It lives on today, utterly extraordinary in Rome. A little detour away from the beauties of ancient Rome, a trip into Parioli is all it takes to see and admire and shiver at his truly unique vision.

Fontana delle Rane