On Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 May it will be possible to visit the institutional seat of the Air Force for free
After the great success of the previous editions, also this year the Palazzo dell'Aeronautica opens its doors to the public on the occasion of the Open House Roma 2019 event. The institutional headquarters of the Air Force will be one of about 200 open places in Rome that can be visited for free on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 May starting from 10.00 with last entry to 18.00, with access every 30 minutes from 4 University Avenue.
By participating in this event, the Air Force wants to contribute to initiatives based on education, knowledge and protection of the country's historical, artistic and architectural heritage. An event that once again allows the Armed Forces to show itself with the firm will to be more and more with people, for people, mindful of the past and of their own traditions, attentive to the present and projected into the future.
Open House Rome is an annual event that in just one weekend sees the free opening of hundreds of buildings in the capital, remarkable for their architectural and artistic peculiarities. The event, unlike similar initiatives, pays particular attention not only to the historical heritage, but above all to the modern and contemporary one.
The monumental Aeronautical Palace was commissioned by the then Minister of the Royal Air Force (1926-1933) Italo Balbo who, for the design, turned to an architect of only 28 years, Roberto Marino; the works were completed in just two years and the building is the first in Italy to be built entirely of reinforced concrete.
The building is designed with wide and safe lines to underline, in the intent of the time, the characteristics of a modern Rome. The interior was conceived with new criteria: large rooms (in place of the old cellular system) in which the tables of the officials are aligned; partitions made mostly of transparent glass to separate the halls from the corridors that connect them; vast dimensions and imposing proportions (the building covers an area of around 8000 square meters).
Simplicity and elegance can also be found in the non-intrusive but significant decorative elements, such as the handles that stylize an airfoil or the "Comando di stick" motif, then the hallmark of the official pilots, re-proposed as an elegant and sober embellishment of the railings of the Scalone d'Onore, of the glass doors of the Halls of the Heroes and the Clouds, even reported in the imposing roofs of the radiators installed at the Halls of Honor.
The "Sala Italia", the "Sala Europa" and the "Sala delle Cartine" are expertly decorated with murals of a geographical, astronomical and historical nature. The last of the three rooms mentioned, in particular, commemorates the two Atlantic Cruises led by Balbo himself in the 1930 and 1933, respectively in Brazil and in the United States. The three halls were the three entrances to the small room of Italo Balbo - on whose wall the words "Beyond Destiny" were placed, as if to emphasize the importance of the visit to the minister, charging them with expectation, for the Heads of Been invited to the Palace.
The functionality of the building was also highlighted by the continuous cycle elevators, "paternoster lift" (consisting of two adjacent and parallel columns of cabins - designed to accommodate two people - superimposed and in slow continuous motion, one uphill, the other downhill, on each floor served, two gates - one for each direction of travel - allow users to get on or off the "on the fly" to or from the cabin) and from the "pneumatic post" system, which allowed in an innovative way and in a era in which e-mails were a distant reality in the future, immediate communication between the various rooms.