Contemporary architecture in Rome.

2013 – In a city layered with the weight of the past, I turned my lens toward the present — to those contemporary public spaces where architecture doesn’t just frame function, but whispers atmosphere.

This series moves through museums, bookshops, and cultural spaces in Rome — places designed not only to be seen, but to be inhabitated. I wasn’t interested in staging emptiness. What drew me was the subtle tension between space and presence. The barely-there. The almost-absent. These are not portraits of people, but portraits of how space holds them.

Wim Wenders, during his honorary degree in architecture at the University of Catania, said he wasn’t sounding the alarm over the loss of identity that many lament — but something deeper:

“…….I’m not going to sound the alarm for the loss of identity complained of by all……
In fact I am much more concerned for another reason.
A much more dramatic loss, a damage inflicted on one of our senses as human beings, on a basic characteristic, such as smell, taste, touch, hearing. One of our senses, the sense of place.” “A place is something completely real. The increasing loss of reality causes the loss of places.
The effects of this growing loss of roots we can only imagine. If an instinct dies, other instincts grow in its place. Social attention doesn’t seem to grow. The sense of place also creates solidarity, a sense of common good, a shared responsibility. A loss of this sense leads to growing greed and a lack of peace.”
from “I luoghi nell’anima con Wim Wenders” written by Carlo Truppi.

This project began as an act of attention. A quiet insistence on the reality of place — and the belief that architecture gains meaning not only from design, but from how it absorbs life, however fleeting. It’s not about capturing form, but about listening to the spaces that speak without raising their voice.

Places and Architects:

Auditorium parco della musica – Renzo Piano
MAXXI – Zaha Hadid
Faculty of Economics ROMA TRE – SPSK+
Romanina sporting center – Alfonso Giancotti-NOOS, Blow Up Architetture srl
The Ara Pacis Museum – Richard Meier
Jubilee Church – Richard Meier
Municipal Library Sandro Onofri – Pierluigi Milone