Temple of Venus and Roma

GOLD MEDAL 2022: International award "Domus - Restoration and preservation" - Fassa Bortolo - University of Ferrara - VIII competition

The Temple of Venus and Rome is the largest ancient Templar building in the city of Rome.
The temple was built from 121 AD according to a design by the emperor Hadrian. Its construction changed the appearance of the area and definitively engraved on the ancient urban landscape of the city.

The executive project for the Restoration of the Temple of Venus and Rome proposed a conservative restoration intended both as a moment of getting to know the monument and as recognition of the need for its conservation.
Restoration work was carried out in accordance with the guiding principles of conservative restoration: minimal intervention, reversibility, differentiation and physical-chemical compatibility and authenticity. The primary objective: not to compromise the documentary value of the monument, safeguarding its authenticity as determined by the historical stratifications.

Being an uncovered building, the temple of Venus and Rome has always been totally exposed to atmospheric agents. All the walls in fact presented a state of widespread decay caused by the presence of rising damp and runoff humidity attributable to rainwater. The humidity had triggered widespread phenomena of surface deposition and biological patina. The presence, in some points, of infesting vegetation, had aggravated the disintegration processes of the original mortars in the portions where the core of the masonry remains exposed to the elements. Among the most frequent deteriorations there was the erosion of the mortar joints, the detachment of portions of masonry or plaster with the consequent loss of original material.

From the preliminary study of the state of conservation of the decorative apparatuses, an accentuated material degradation emerged: the rhomboidal stuccoes of the apses and the coffered ones of the cells presented ample detachments.

Once the various phenomena of alteration and degradation have been identified and mapped, it was considered useful to create a series of thematic maps in which the material analysis and that of degradation are associated with the intervention required by the restoration methodology. These summary maps - modulated to allow continuous updating of increases and changes - have favored the definition of the intervention criteria for the historic building and the drafting of a project compatible with the intrinsic characteristics of the monument.

The Temple of Venus and Rome underwent several restorations at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with important interventions that gave the building the appearance it has now. Restoring the temple of Venus and Rome therefore also meant carrying out a "restoration of the restoration". This practice was evident, for example, in the restoration of the porphyry columns whose anastylosis dates back to the twentieth century, and in the cleaning and consolidation of the modern floors of the two Cells.

The restoration has acted on the elimination or substantial reduction of the causes that originated the state of degradation: in this direction we thought about an improvement of the current rainwater collection system to guarantee a regimentation of the hips and remove any possible washout on the surfaces. , intervening in particular on the top of the south wall of the Cella di Roma by increasing the section of the current collection channel and reshaping its shares to regularize the slopes and accompany the waters to the disposal points.
An essential point was the theme of accessibility: the Temple of Venus and Rome can be visited entirely by people with different abilities through an ad hoc path.