Born out of the need to react to the troubled atmosphere suffocating Rome during the years of terrorism and criminality, the Estate Romana, conceived and promoted by Renato Nicolini under the mayorships of Giulio Carlo Argan and Luigi Petroselli took cultural initiatives out of their traditional homes into the streets, the archaeological sites, the parks and the public space.

On the occasion of its 40th anniversary, the Estate Romana relives at Maxxi with the partial reconstruction of one of its most iconic locations

For the third edition of 1979, the architects Franco Purini and Laura Thermes were invited to transform the constellation of single initiatives into a coordinated project on an urban scale, the Parco Centrale, in order to extend the focus of Rome’s urban life well beyond the old circle of the Aurelian walls and to offer an initial response to the marginalization of the suburbs. One of the works that constituted the backbone of this ephemeral city (designed by U. Colombari, G. De Boni, F. Purini, D. Staderini, L.Thermes) was the Teatrino Scientifico in Via Sabotino.

An architecture composed of ephemeral projects, capable of creating appropriate settings for events and urban life

Maxxi, in collaboration with the Purini Thermes studio, is reconstructing in the museum piazza part of the original theatre, conceptually representing what Nicolini loved to call the Urban Marvel, “capable of producing movement, of formulating new hypotheses, of renewing culture and politics itself”: a project that, with a series of shows, conferences and workshops devoted to discussion of its heritage and its currency, celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first edition of the Estate Romana and underlines the potential of cultural and artistic activities as primary instruments of the redevelopment of the city and the communities that inhabit it.