July 4, 1957: The first Fiat 500 hit the Italian streets in Turin, Italy. Launched as the Nuova 500, it was marketed as a cheap and practical town car to combat high levels of congestion in Italian cites. Because of its diminutive size, the 500 proved to be an enormously popular vehicle throughout Europe and was produced until 1975.
July 4, 2007: exactly 50 years later – again in Turin – Fiat will release an updated version of its most famous car. Tiny like it’s iconic predecessor, the new 500 measures just 355 cm long (11.65 ft), 165 cm wide (5.4 ft) and 149 cm tall (4.9ft), and rides on a 230 cm (7.5 ft) wheelbase.
The excitement is palpable. Fiat is planning a huge launch to be broadcast on TV and the web.
There’s also an elaborate website where 500 enthusiasts have uploaded their own commercials for the new car as part of a contest (winners have already been announced). The website also encourages Fiat fans to contribute to 500-ology, a growing encyclopedia dedicated to the new vehicle, as well as to use a concept lab to try out their own car design ideas.
Image via Notcot.com
For more than 150 years, Italians (and those who love all things Italian) have reveled in the beautiful red color and distinctive bitter taste of Campari. Whether stirred into a Negroni, drunk over ice, or mixed with soda or orange juice, Campari signals the end of the working day and the commencement of the ever-enjoyable evening drinks-and-dinner ritual.
Now, however, you can enjoy Campari in a whole new way. Designer Rafaelle Celentano has created a Campari lamp for Ingo Maurer. Ten original Campari Soda bottles – designed by Futurist artist Fortunato Depero in 1932 – are individually detachable and surround a PAR lamp.
You can buy it from Mighty Goods. Now any room can become a red light district!
More inclined to wear your Campari than to hang it from the ceiling? The Campari skirt always makes a splash!
Skirt via CharlesFred
With the exception of a few sweltering days, Rome’s summer has been blissfully cool thus far. Nonetheless, as the mercury creeps up the thermometer, we find ourselves searching for cool and fruity things to eat and drink. Tutti frutti is in. Pizza and pasta are out.
Naturally, such cravings take us to Frullati Pascucci, a friendly 70-year-old bar (Via di Torre Argentina, 20) located just meters from the site where Julius Caesar was stabbed to death. Who could ask for a better location? Hailed as the “king of frullati,” the entrance of Pascucci is guarded by four industrial strength blenders in which the staff produce about about 100 different kinds of delicious and nutritious fruit frappes. (Of course, Romans also proclaim the health benefits of gelato, but we cling tenaciously to the belief that fruit-filled frullati are marginally better for us).)
On a hot day, droves of frullati aficionados wait patiently in line at the cash register, coins in hand (exact change, if possible!), ready to tell the trusty cashier whether they’re in the mood for “kiwi and strawberry,” “banana and blueberry,” or the famous “Amalfi.” Having paid and been given a receipt, customers move on to the stainless steel counter where barmen armed-with-the-patience-of-Job as well as world-class blending skills, scoop the requisite fruit, ice, and milk into blender pitchers and set the appliances whirling.
This is not a place to linger – most Romans are in and out in a matter of minutes. Nor is it a place of particular comfort – the only a few barstools along the wall. But, like so many of Rome’s delights, enjoying a frullato at Pascucci is a simple pleasure. The fun of watching your chosen treat spin in a humming blender is second only to the excitement of seeing your drink poured into a freshly rinsed glass and drawing the first sip up a straw.
Via Zoomata:
Oliviero Toscani, former Benetton ad guru, has convinced the Italian porta-potty company Sebach to hold an international “dream toilet” competition for architects, designers and engineers.
The winner will be selected on the basis of both aesthetics and feasibility for mass production. The prize is 5,000 euro (circa $6,600). Inspired? Better get busy: the deadline is August 4.
If Rome’s connection to all things eternal is what attracts you to the city, head straight for the Boscolo Aleph Hotel near Piazza Barberini and the Via Veneto. With interiors designed by Adam Tihany, the award-winning Aleph provides the sin-tillating (but luxurious) opportunity to retrace Dante’s fantastic voyage from hell to heaven.
Hell, the hotel lobby and bar, is an inferno of reds. The deluxe decor suggests that Dante has redecorated and that his designer has an eye for luxury and a startlingly good sense of humor.
But, heaven can’t wait. As a way of reuniting body and soul after a long flight you can choose spa in the lower level of the hotel and the 7th Heaven rooftop bar which showcases the cityscape of domes pointing toward the skies. The rooms are equally ethereal. They’re ultra-mod and sleek, decorated with huge black and white photos of Rome’s past and present.
Should you want to further indulge your vices (or virtues?) visit the lush restaurant, Maremoto, where the creative cuisine offers a distinctly Roman interpretation of “soul food,” or spend some quality time paying homage to the god of wine in the Dionysus Bar.
OK, we’ll admit it. We spend a lot of our free time at Pianegonda on Via della Croce where we lust after the ultra-hip rings, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings showcased in the starkly minimalist store. And, the rest of our spare time we spend visiting the Pianegonda store in Galleria Sordi on Via del Corso. We’re simply in love with the new collections and utterly entertained by their current and very clever “Very Me” ad campaign.
The jewelry line, now sold worldwide, was founded in Milan by Franco Pianegonda in 1994 and has been blissfully breaking the rules in the world of luxury jewelery ever since.
Has anyone seen these people? They’ve gone from our TV screens and we miss them terribly.
HBO has just announced that season 2 of their short-lived but much celebrated ROME series will be released on DVD on August 7, 2007. Order now and spend the dog days of summer with this ancient and affable crowd.
Via Fightnews.com and La Repubblica: In an effort to breathe new life into the Italian boxing scene, an Italian company called Sports Promotion hosted an imperial-style event last night. A Euro title cruiserweight clash took on gladiatorial overtones as it was staged on Piazza del Colosseo where the fourth-century Arch of Constantine served as a backdrop. Local hero Vincenzo Cantatore (whose record is 32-4-1 and includes 27 knockouts) fought Ukranian Alexander Gurov (39–1, 33 knockouts) in a challenge for the crown. The fighters wowed the crowds by going 12 rounds before Italian fighter Cantatore managed to secure his victory.
For five years, Rome’s majestic exhibition hall, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni on Via Nazionale, has been closed for restoration. Originally designed by the architect Pio Piacentini and inaugurated in 1883, the Palazzo (or Palaexpo) has been host to some of Rome’s most important art exhibits and cultural events. When closed for restoration in 2002, the building was greatly in need of modernization and repair, and as often is the case, these works have taken significantly longer than expected. Thus, Romans were quite delighted with the recent announcement that the Palaexpo will finally reopen on 4 October and that its reopening will be celebrated with a major exhibition of the works of painter Mark Rothko that will run until 7 January 2008. (See here for our previous post on Rothko posters around Rome).
Yet, just because the Palazzo delle Esposizioni is currently closed doesn’t mean that it’s not serving its purpose! As part of Rome’s ongoing International Photography Festival, the facade of the Palaexpo hosts a photography exhibit by artist Patrizia Bonanzinga that is aptly titled “Lavori in corso” or “Work in Progress.” Huge collages mounted on the front of the building are made up of compellingly detailed photos that document the extensive restoration project going on inside the building. About her desire to share these usually invisible scenes with the public, Bonanzinga says:
I am interested in investigating these passing stages in which space is decomposed and then later recomposed in another form. So I use a photographic montage that I create in a large format, consisting in numerous images, and printed on large surfaces…
The exhibit will be on display until 31 August 2007.
If the final episode of the the HBO/BBC series ROME left you longing for more, you can now make a journey into ancient Rome by way of your computer. For the past ten years, a team of archaeologists and computer geeks led by Bernard Frischer from the University of Virginia and Diane Favro from UCLA have been working on Rome Reborn 1.0, a digital recreation of Rome. They call it the largest and most complete simulation of a historic city ever made.
The simulation shows Rome in A.D. 320, at the time the emperor Constantine, digitally reconstructing the 7,000 that lay within the 13-mile circuit of the Aurelian Walls. The simulation also presents the interiors of about 30 buildings – including the Senate, the Colosseum and the basilica built by the emperor Maxentius – complete with their frescoes and decorations.
Sections of the simulation are available on the project’s website, which currently only offers images and videos of the simulation since allowing simultaneous access to potentially thousands of users would require enormous computer power. Project Directors say talks have begun with Linden Labs, based in San Francisco, California, to make the entire simulation available on the Internet through the company’s virtual world “Second Life.”
A group of private companies also plans to open in April 2008 a theater near the Colosseum that will feature interactive, 3D animations based on the simulation, Rome officials said.
The project offers great potential in helping us understand ancient Rome in all its glory. As for seeing the monuments, virtual is cool but there’s nothing like the real thing baby.
