The "Dolce Vita" illuminated
Location: Rome
Façades area: 5.000 Smq
Client: Asset Management Company
Project time: 2016
“To Federico Fellini who made Via Veneto the theatre of the Dolce Vita”
This is the inscription on the plaque wanted by the Municipality of Rome, to celebrate the partnership between the great Director Federico Fellini and one of the most beautiful and iconic streets of the Capital, Via Vittorio Veneto, colloquially called Via Veneto, in Rome. Numerous sumptuous and elegant buildings overlook the length of only 750 metres of Via Veneto, which connects Porta Pinciana to Piazza Barberini. These buildings house luxurious hotels, Ministries, and the US Embassy. The building subject to intervention is one of these sumptuous constructions. The three façades overlooking the street have a total area of almost 5.000 Sqm. The façades are characterised by a considerable monumentality, certainly due - among other things - to the height of over 30 metres from the ground, dived by a travertine base in the lower part, a central part housing the windows of the four upper floors and a crowning cornice, on which an architectural monumental balustrade stands on.
The giant pilasters play a key role in the compositional and monumental aspect of the façade, as they connect the lower part to the upper one, horizontally mark the rhythm of windows, highlighting both the corners of the building and its central part, as well as the balconies on the main floor and the underlying portals. The lighting design was born from the reading of the façade in an interpretative key, identifying a few but fundamental architectural elements suitable to enhance the entire building, also considering the optimisation of the resources available, the energy saving and its future maintenance. The architectural elements thus identified, and partly described above, are: - The entrance doors; - The stringcourse at the end of the base; - The giant pilasters, complete with bases and capitals; - Windows and balconies of the entire main first floor.
We chose to use the products of the Company iGuzzini, both due to their vast assortment of technological solutions and the great quality of materials; this has allowed us to illuminate the surfaces with extreme sobriety and energy efficiency, thanks to the use of LED lights. We decided to use the iGuzzini – iPro ceiling floodlights for the entrance doors, assembled under the keystone; while iGuzzini – Woody floodlights - assembled on stem to distance them from the façade - were used for the stringcourse.
The same type of floodlights was chosen for the pilasters, without distancing them from the surface and with a narrow beam. It is worth mentioning that the "extendable arm" allow an easy maintenance of the lamps directly from the adjacent balcony, without the use of bulky and expensive scaffolding or mechanical means; such system was engineered by us and specifically hand made for this project.
The windows on the main floor are lit by iGuzzini - Trick Washer, small lighting fixtures with soft and diffused light. The small size of these lighting fixtures allowed us to position them in correspondence to the centre of the windows, without preventing the normal opening and closing of shutters.
The balconies were lit by the iGuzzini – Linealuce linear system, wall assembled by means of special clamps, that set the distance from the illuminated area so that the oblique light effect is continuous and homogeneous.
The oblique light does not directly illuminate a surface but lightly touches it, highlighting the quality of textures and giving a sculptural depth to the illuminated elements.
Fellini switched on the spotlights on Via Veneto and we have contributed, to a small extent, to "keeping alive" the memory of the grandeur of the Dolce Vita.
