Centrale Montemartini, 1912

Centrale Montemartini.

The Montemartini thermoelectric power station was the first public electrical system for the production of electricity of the “Municipal Electricity Company” of Rome and was inaugurated on June 30, 1912.

The power plant was built on an area of about 20,000 square meters between the Via Ostiense and the bend of the Tiber: the monumental aspect of the building is justified by the desire to show the pride of the municipality in being able to provide for the production of services for its citizens.

In 1933 two gigantic 7500 Hp diesel engines, both 23 meters long, were placed inside the completely renovated engine room. A new mosaic floor drew multicolored frames around the machines, which are still useful today to visualize the original layout.

In 1963 the power plant, now obsolete, ceased to function: for about 20 years it was abandoned until it was decided to restore it to create a multifunctional space destined for new uses; the works, begun in 1989, were carried out respecting the original forms, recovering part of the original decorations and machinery, including the large steam turbine of 1917.

In 1997, about a hundred sculptures from ancient Rome were temporarily transferred to the former Centrale Montemartini and set up in the exhibition “The machines and the gods“, creating a dialogue between classical archeology and industrial archeology.

Initially conceived as temporary, on the occasion of the return of part of the sculptures to the Capitoline Hill in 2005, at the conclusion of the renovation works, it was confirmed as the permanent home of the most recently acquired collections of the Capitoline Museums.

Today the Centrale Montemartini is one of the most innovative and fascinating museum spaces in the city: the unusual and “scandalous” combination of modernism and classicism, initially seen by many as a “sacrilege“, makes this place a “unique” which holds together with elegance and courage testimonies of the greatness of ancient Rome and those of its recent insertion into the flow of modernity as an undisputed protagonist.