Many editions at Fiera di Roma, then the pandemic and a remote 2020. For the return of the public in attendance, however, the Maker Faire Rome has chosen the area of the Gazometro, in the heart of the Ostiense district. An area in expansion, lively, cool, which from an industrial symbol has been transformed into hope for the cultural restart of the capital and the country. The headquarters of the Talent Garden and the New Academy of Fine Arts have settled here. “Joule”, Eni’s school of sustainable business, will soon be located here.
The Gazometro area occupies an area of over twelve hectares where Eni, main partner of Maker Faire Rome 2021, is proceeding with the recovery of industrial areas and reclamation works. An area that is a candidate to transform into an open ecosystem dedicated to new non-emission business models and the development of entrepreneurial chains. In the same spaces where industrial Rome had started the extraction of gas from coal in the early twentieth century to give energy to industry and the city, technological innovation projects will be born that will contribute to objectives of the 2030 Agenda.
In this neighborhood he also recently settled Zero, the clean-tech accelerator of the national Cassa Depositi e Prestiti network, which already sees Eni collaborating with Cdp Venture, Lventure, Elis, Acea, Maire Tecnimont and Microsoft. Of the ten of the best Italian startups, seven started their acceleration and market launch path here. The goal is to start about thirty entrepreneurial realities over the next three years.
The history of the Gazometro
The Gazometro is a piece of Rome’s industrial glory, a gigantic figure somehow “out of place” in the neighborhood that he also represents so strongly. In this sense, the Gazometro is Roman that no longer can be, ambassador of a city that welcomes and integrates. A bit like it also happens in Ostiense, the neighborhood that surrounds it and which has gone through an important process that even the cinema has described well, starting with Ozpetek.
There are three gazometers housed in the area: the first two, smaller, date back to 1910, while the largest and most famous appeared in the official registers on June 28, 1935. When Rome becomes the capital it is little more than a village, protected by the Aurelian Walls. The mayor Ernesto Nathan, in 1909, brings to the approval a master plan that provides for the creation of a new industrial district at the beginning of the Via Ostiense. This is how the Montemartini thermoelectric plant, the general markets, the general warehouses and the Gazometers were born.
Robots, artificial intelligence, prototypes: discovering new technologies at Maker Faire 2021
Ostiense today
Originally an industrial area, then an abandoned popular district, today Ostiense is passing through a cultural transformation central to the city. In recent years, the Ostiense nightlife has marked the line for other realities, in the city and in Italy and the entrepreneurial ferment could only follow its trail. The neighborhood develops around Via Ostiense, the main street, from which it takes its name. Once an ancient Roman road from the cattle market from the city to the port city of Ostia, it is now a commercial road and an important road artery
Ostiense has a great wealth of things to see and do e great places to eat. The neighborhood was created in the early 20th century as the city’s first industrial district. The urban plan of 1909 wanted by the then mayor Nathan completely transformed the area, identifying in that quadrant of the city the perfect location for the creation of a production-industrial area. Ostiense was ideal for two reasons: it was close to the Tiber, an important transport route for goods, and to the workers’ quarters of Testaccio and Garbatella. Buildings such as the main power plants, gasometers, military stations, warehouses and factories made it the symbol of modernity and entry into the new era. What it wants to be now: the center of innovation.