The future of Rome is a living satire. It is as it exists today, but even more so. The city is ever expanding– but instead of building out, the Romans of today build up, so that the Romans of tomorrow live in towers of precariously stacked Neo-stylized segments of structure. Neo-gothic arches rest atop Neoclassic columns that sit atop Neo-modern stainless steel.
As the city generates a taller and more varied skyline, a division between ground floors and rising stories becomes clearer and clearer.
Tourists mill about the streets, into and out of shops chock-full of magnets and posters and umbrellas and t-shirts. In order to limit the integration of tourists with local inhabitants, Romans begin moving all things necessary for living above ground, to keep needed stores and shops close to homes on the upper levels.
Historic monuments are “restored” to an age of the “glorious ruin,” otherwise known as the walking tour that is now Rome’s entire street level.
The French Embassy is the new Epcot Center of Rome. Here tourists come to learn about France in an educational but fun manner.
The Teatro Pompeo, an ancient Roman theater is now restored to what archaeologists believe it to have looked like, and is also open for public exhibition.
Via degli Giubbonari and Via dei Pelligrino, former pilgrimage roads to the Vatican, are now pilgrimage roads to Piazza Navona to the North, and lead to further tourist attractions throughout Rome.
The ground level of Campo de’Fiori has become a traditional flower market, in keeping with the literal translation of the campo’s name and what some historians believed the space to have once been occupied as. Above the ground floor rises a megamall of multiuse. First through third floors are for souvenir shops and the like, while rising above are fresh food markets, home supply stores, florists, cafes, restaurants– anything and everything the inhabitants of Rome could need for living, without ever having to mingle among the chaos of city visitors.
Tourists are very nearly swept away in the race to see as much of Rome as possible, without really seeing any of it at the same time.