Two Hundred and Sixteen Thousand Sixtieths of a Second: One Hour with Massimiliano Fuksas

By Stefano Casciani - 8 January 2010

Stefano Casciani - Shall we begin with something difficult, the new Rome Conference Centre at EUR. This project hanging over you since 2002, I expect you feel is the most troublesome of your career.
Massimiliano Fuksas - A bit less now than it was: thanks to support from Mayor Veltroni, it’s the only project, with at least part of its funds still needed, that got included in the Finance Bill approved this December. But some time ago, too, we wrested the site from a firm that’s been practically marking time for three years.

S.C. - Is the architectural side finally sorted out?
M.F. - That side has always been sorted out. The plans have always been there, as you see them and have always seen them: the only thing we’ve changed is the hotel. That’s no longer an experimental design but something more conventional. It’s still worth a packet, though, in the order of tens of millions of euros.

S.C. - Why do you think such a vital project for a city like Rome has had such a long and complicated history?
M.F. - It’s the old story with public works in Italy, that’s why it’s complicated. Now the new Milan Fairground at Rho Pero is a private job, so one might say it was a model case, in European terms too, which we virtually built in two years. Like the Ferrari Product Development Centre, another private job. But when you’re dealing with public works, things get complex, mainly due to the amount of bureaucracy: it’s pervasive, compulsive… And when bureaucracy stops serving the State and becomes an end in itself, you get complete nonsense. It’s surreal: it has no other rationale but its own survival.

S.C. - So I suppose that explains all the obstacles around a vastly more utopian project than the normal run of Italian public architecture?
M.F. - Many problems have come from...