Reporter Kayla Lee

The capital of Italy is known throughout the world for its countless beauties and the infinite historical, cultural, artistic and architectural heritage it boasts, attracting almost 15 million visitorsin 2022 alone (Federalberghi data, 2022). Nonetheless, not everyone knows that Rome hosts, between the Flaminio, Foro Italico and Farnesina districts, the so-called “Contemporary District”, a rare concentration of 20th century architecture, and one that is constantly evolving, thanks to the recent contributions of Zaha Hadid’s “Maxxi” and Renzo Piano’s “Parco della Musica”.

This urban nucleus, which has as its pivot the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has made it possible to enhance the urban landscape of the Italian capital,

which thus shows a modern face of its already appreciated beauty. In order to present and make known the Contemporary District also in Korea, next Monday 10 July, the President of the International University of Venice, Ambassador Umberto Vattani, will present the District at Korea University in Seoul. The Ambassador will discuss this initiative with Kim Hyun-seop, professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the same University.

The Italian Embassy in Seoul is particularly pleased to present this project, as, within the District, the Palazzo della Farnesina, today the seat of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “is located in a particularly important position and constitutes the central node of the system; it is expected to host a series of multimedia installations to illustrate the originality and importance of the works realised in the District,” as President Vattani himself recalls.

To speak of the Contemporary District is to speak of a work of urban regeneration, of new spaces for the arts,
design and architecture. The idea is to compare this offer with the architectural landscape and urban regeneration projects of Seoul and the Republic of Korea. The Contemporary District includes architectural elements of considerable value, often unknown to most and considered second to the classical tourist attractions of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Baroque in the Eternal City

The lecture, organized by the Italian Embassy in Seoul in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, will be held at 2.00 p.m. on Monday 10 July in Hall B102, College of Engineering, Korea University in the presence of guests from architecture firms, universities, companies and other diplomatic missions.

“This complex constitutes an extraordinary urban heritage from many points of view: environmental, cultural, historical. I am proud to be able to tell these beauties to the South Korean people through the masterful speech of Ambassador Vattani, who will bring to Seoul another equally important part of our contemporary artistic heritage: the exhibition “The Great Italian Vision”, 71 works of the Farnesina Collection, the artistic collection of our Ministry which is the result of the Ambassador's own intuition in the early 2000s and which today counts more than 600 works of contemporary art. I always consider moments of cultural exchange between our two

countries to be precious and I am extremely pleased that this opportunity comes at a time when there is particular attention to contemporary art and architecture in Korea,” said the Italian Ambassador Federico Failla.