Collection 5 models 150 numbered pieces per model Photographed in the city

Roma

No other capital was founded by looking up.

Two models in front of the fountain, Rome

Photo shoot · one day in July 26 shots on this page 4 film clips

It is called Roma because that is where it was born.

No metaphor and no concept. The first series carries the name of the city where it was designed, photographed and put on sale: that is the whole reason for the name.

What we found afterwards we had not gone looking for. That the city was founded by counting birds of prey in flight. That auspicio means, literally, to watch the birds. That thirty kilometres away there is another one, built on purpose for the wind. It was already there.

The ancient fact

No other capital was founded by looking up.

Romulus and Remus did not fight a duel for the city. They climbed two hills and counted the birds of prey passing overhead. Remus saw six, Romulus twelve, and the city went to the one who had counted more.

It is not a picturesque detail added for colour: it is the founding act. Rome exists because two people looked up and counted what was flying.

From that practice come two words we still say today without knowing where they come from.

A model looking at the sky in front of a brick wall — Looking up, and counting

auspicio From avis, bird, and specere, to watch. Literally: to watch the birds.

inaugurate From augur, the one who read the flight. Nothing is begun without one, even now.

augury The same root. In Italian, an augurio is the good wish you give someone who is leaving.

The city, worn.

14 shots · open to enlarge

One day in July, from early morning on the terrace to late afternoon in the back streets. No studio and no backdrop: the frames were photographed where the collection took its name.

A model sitting on a balustrade, the steps behind her — The steps, early morning

Two models in front of the fountain — In front of the fountain

A close portrait against the light, lace dress — Against the light, on the steps

A model sitting on a terrace parapet, rooftops behind her — On the parapet, above the rooftops

A model sitting on a low wall at the top of a flight of steps — The steps, towards noon

A portrait in the sun, face lifted to the light — The face lifted

A model standing in front of an ancient brick and travertine wall — The brick wall

A model against a wall, a scooter blurring past — A scooter goes past

A model leaning on a railing between two columns — Between the columns

A model leaning on a gate in an alley — In the alley, in the shade

A model leaning on a stone wall in an alley — Against the stone

A model standing in front of a blue door — The blue door

A portrait beneath a jasmine bush in flower — The jasmine

A model sitting on a green cast-iron bench in front of a door — The cast-iron bench

The modern fact

Thirty kilometres away there is a city built for the wind.

Guidonia was born in the nineteen-thirties with a single purpose: to put aircraft inside moving air and watch what happens. Wind tunnels, test chambers, runways. Not a district and not a plant: a whole town, founded to measure the air.

Every Flyper frame spends two hundred and fifty hours in the wind tunnel before it is given a number. The idea that a whole place could be built to do only that had already occurred to someone here.

250

hours inside the wind tunnel

190

hours of handwork for every frame

measurement checks before a number is assigned

How the work is done, in the workshop

A model in motion, her dress caught by the wind — The air decides the shape

The city, with no one in it.

Scroll → · 6 shots

A black frame resting on a block of travertine — On the travertine

A frame resting against an iron railing — On a railing

A tortoiseshell frame with green lenses in the sun on stone — In the sun, on the stone

A frame with green lenses on a pale low wall — Green lenses, pale stone

A black frame resting on the cobbles — On the cobbles

A frame hanging from a lion's-head knocker — Hung on the knocker

Four clips, one single story.

A film was shot alongside the stills, in the same places on the same day. Four clips that, cut in sequence, tell a single story. Shot in cinema format, they open full screen.