The Other Rome - 1870-1960 | An Evening with Jean-François Lejeune

Splendid Ordinary: The Other Rome - 1870-1960 | An Evening with Jean-Franco

Join us on Sunday, Dec 14 at 6PM in Coral Gables for an evening with the author of The Other Rome: The Splendid Ordinary of the Modern City. This richly illustrated book explores the evolution of the “Eternal City” beyond its ancient core—revealing the beauty, history, and humanity of Rome’s modern neighborhoods through architecture, design, and film. A conversation, Q&A, and signing will follow.

🎟 Free & open to the public — RSVP recommended.

Rome, the “Eternal City”, is a unique palimpsest of building and public spaces dating back to Antiquity. However, beyond the historic center built over millennia on the famous seven hills – the Other Rome exists, one of large and often stunning modern neighborhoods, housing estates, schools, and public buildings. When Rome became Italy’s capital in 1871, the population increased extensively and the city exceeded its boundaries since Roman times, the Aurelian Walls. This extraordinary transformation laid the foundation for many new quarters built to accommodate civil servants, service workers and rural migrants, drawing on vernacular and ancient Roman traditions and blending past and present. The book looks at Rome’s evolution into a modern metropolis, whose architecture embodies a kind of “Splendid Ordinary” – a journey that is full of discoveries with in-depth portraits of 16 neighborhoods with photographs and drawings. An excursion on post-WWII Italian cinema highlights the locations of many important movies.

Jean-François Lejeune is Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami School of Architecture and Adjunct Professor at the University of Notre Dame Rome Gateway. His research ranges from Latin American architecture and urbanism to 20th-century vernacular modernism in Spain and Italy. Among his publications, Modern Architecture and the Mediterranean: Vernacular Dialogues and Contested Identities (Routledge 2010), Rural Architecture and Water Urbanism: The Modern Village in Franco’s Spain (DOM Publishers 2021), Cuban Modernism: Mid-Century Architecture 1940-1070 (with Victor Deupi, Birkhäuser 2021), and just published The Other Rome: Building the Modern Metropolis 1870–1960 (Birkhäuser 2025). He is a founder and director of DoCOMOMO-US/Florida and was an Affiliated Fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 2008.

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