Book Story

The Eternal City, Reimagined

You’re standing in the shadow of a crumbling aqueduct, the scent of espresso and rebellion in the air. A boy in red boxing gloves dances in a sunlit courtyard. A girl with a camera and a cause screens Rossellini in a squatted cinema. A poet tattoos verses on a wall in Tor Bella Monaca. And somewhere, a lake that wasn’t supposed to exist reflects the sky like it’s always been there.

This isn’t the Rome of postcards. This is the Rome of possibility.

Twelve collectives. One city. Countless dreams.
From the graffiti-splashed gyms of Quarticciolo to the velvet-curtained theaters of Angelo Mai, from feminist safe havens to football fields where the rules are rewritten—this is a city stitched together by the hands of those who refuse to wait for permission.

They don’t just dream. They build. They box. They print. They plant. They film. They fight.
And they do it all with the kind of style only Romans can pull off in a housing squat or a community garden.

Recommended for:

Urban romantics. Guerrilla gardeners. Cinephiles. Feminists. Flâneurs. Anyone who’s ever wanted to change the world, but started with their neighborhood.

Care Instructions:

Handle with hope. Wash in the waters of collective memory. Dry under the Roman sun.

From the Back Cover

In an increasingly fragmented society, a sense of community is spreading, driven by visionaries and dreamers. Over the last decades in Rome, citizens have reappropriated public spaces in which they can congregate, they are reanimating their neighborhoods, fighting the housing crisis, empowering women and gender minorities, protecting and enhancing the environment, providing opportunities for the young, and promoting independent culture and sports activities accessible to everyone. From Quarticciolo to Trastevere, Marina Engel invites us to explore twelve remarkable experiences of community regeneration in the Eternal City. She recounts the stories, motives, fears and dreams of its inhabitants, determined to combat neo-liberalist ideology and the urban politics it imposes to follow a collective dream of the city of the possible.

Marina Engel was born and grew up in London. She has worked as an independent contemporary art curator in Switzerland and for many years curated both the contemporary art and architecture programme at the British School at Rome. She collaborates with a number of British and US architecture journals.

What Other Readers Think

Marina Engel offers a rich recounting of community in Rome. This book becomes an essential guide into examples of community-powered action  promoting accessibility and opportunities for all within the city’s diverse population and public spaces.

Ellie Stathaki
Architecture & Environment Director Wallpaper*

Among the thousands of surveys of Rome, Marina Engel - a foreign resident in Rome for decades - adds a remarkable study that focuses on issues previously missed by many analysts. The object of her compelling research is the citizen-led movement of communities and social groups who are activating an approach to urban regeneration that mainstream politics has not been able to pursue.

Pippo Ciorra
Senior Curator, MAXXI Architecture, Rome

In recent years there’s been a lot of talk in the architecture and planning community about concepts such as “co-design,” public engagement, collaboration, and equity. The ideas are often loosely defined, in a sort of deliberate one-size-fits-all attempt to connect to the zeitgeist. But what do all these ideas really look like in practice? Look no further than Marina Engel’s new book, Twelve Dreams of Rome. The author reports on the citizen groups organizing all over the capital, in an attempt to protect homes, public spaces, and neighborhoods from rampant real estate speculation. Much of this is done in collaboration with architects and designers, who in turn are showing what real co-design, authentic public engagement, and genuine collaboration looks like. The book is a great primer for our politically uncertain future.

Martin Pederson
Writer, Editor and Executive Director Common Edge