The metamorphoses of the EUR Water Tower, Rome, between autarchy and economic miracle (1940–59)

In a 1961 article, the engineer Roberto Colosimo Sr described his iconic water tower at EUR, Rome (1957–59, also known as ‘the mushroom’), recalling a previous 1940 project, unexecuted due to the entry of Italy into World War II. This paper analyses the transition between the two towers as a sort of animal metamorphosis, largely conditioned by the different scientific and cultural contexts. The first design maximized the strength through form-resistant structures. Its image would have evoked late antique architecture, in which firmness was entrusted to mass and geometry. The continuous and bold structures of the first solution, conceived during the autarchy imposed by the Fascist government, became more discrete in the 1957 project. The second solution, built in reinforced concrete, transformed the massive buttress of the autarchic design in punctual supports, intertwined in a stellar arrangement of shelves, which showed the high technological level and creative genius of post-war Italian engineering. The paper refers to archival documents to jointly study the two projects, revealing the metamorphoses that took place between two projects conceived for the same place and by the same author, but within different political and economic conditions.