Alvaro Ciaramaglia: The Forgotten Roman Architect Rediscovered

Architect Alvaro Ciaramaglia, largely overlooked by Italian architectural criticism, is the subject of a 2009 monograph curated by Paola Rossi and published by Prospettive Edizioni. Critic Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi recounts his personal discovery of Ciaramaglia’s work, noting that six buildings he unknowingly encountered in Rome—including a house he lived in at Largo della Gancia, an apartment his mother bought in Piazzale degli Eroi, and buildings in Via Cola di Rienzo, Viale Parioli, Via Crescenzio, and Via di Donna Olimpia—were all designed by the same architect. Ciaramaglia’s career spanned the 1960s and 1970s, a period Puglisi considers extraordinary for Roman architecture. His works include the Piazzale degli Eroi building (1966-1967), Via Cola di Rienzo (1967-1972), Viale Parioli (1968-1969), and Via Poma (1969-1973). The Viale Parioli building is deemed his masterpiece, featuring capsule-like volumes inspired by Archigram and Japanese metabolists like Kisho Kurokawa, but executed with artisanal craftsmanship. The Via Poma building is notable for its exposed concrete and Brutalist references. Puglisi attributes Ciaramaglia’s obscurity to a combination of the architect’s own reticence and a bias in Italian architectural criticism that favored historicist or nostalgic approaches over builders and entrepreneurs. He compares Ciaramaglia to other neglected professionals such as Luigi Pellegrin, Francesco Palpacelli, and the Passarelli brothers.