While I repair the boat, I have decided to explore without it.
Jeff Williams told me that there is a lake in the EUR.
so we headed out to see what it was like.
The Esposizione Universale Roma is a suburb of Rome, planned by Fascist architects in the 1930’s.
It doesn’t look much like the rest of Rome with its wide open streets and modern architecture. The ‘laghetto’ is a kilometer long rectangular pool right in the middle of the EUR.
From the subway, it is difficult to walk right up to the lake.
Large parts of the bank seem to be under construction.
You can’t quite tell if things are coming or going. (J.W.photo)
Even these posters about the development of the waterfront seem derelict.
It’s like they kept changing their mind about what to do with the lake.
By putting a waterfront into the Fascist plan, they unwittingly created a space impossible to control.
All the social flexibility of the shoreline,
exists here on a microcosmic scale.
It looks like at one point the architects intended for people to walk right up to the water’s edge. Later a fence was put up around the water, and then a hedge to hide the fence.
Parts of the lake have become a kind of swamp. This is Jeff’s picture of gnats that were so thick in areas, we had to hold our breath to avoid inhaling them. (J.W.photo)
In 1961 Antonioni made the film ‘Eclipse’, set in the EUR.
The movie seems to hover between day and night,
between coming and going.
It’s easy to see the landscape as a metaphor for the failed utopia of Fascism.
But what is it really?
We decided to try and get out in the lake in one of the rental boats,
and see what the shore looked like from the water.
weird drains
a waterfall (J.W.photo)
From here you can see that the rocky bank is an illusion.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to do this.” I said. (J.W.photo)
“From here the whole lake looks like a reflecting pool for the Roman Credit Union.” Jeff said.
But there are people feeding the ducks, and in some ways that works the way it is supposed to.
Perhaps the shorline is in flux, but people seem to be enjoying it,
and the water can’t help but have its own ellegance.
Perhaps something about the flexibility of the shorline is what makes it easier to reflect on the past, even in the shadow of these ghostlike shapes. (J.W.photo)
We paid for our rowboat, and took the bus back to the city.
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