Designed in 30s of the last century by Luigi Moretti for the ONB (Opera Nazionale Balilla) and restored in 2007, ex-GIL in Trastevere focuses different spaces and functions inside: representative offices, space for sports and recreational activities, health care and theatre. The building, originally conceived as a juxtaposition of different volumes, is made from the combination of two boxes destined for gyms and theater and a cylinder that determines the internal structure.
The functions are organized as follows: the organizing center and representation is placed in the tower; the sports and recreation center is located in the body of the outdoor gyms; the health-care center and the youth employment center that includes classrooms, theater and school boards, are placed in low volume adjacent to the existing building.
The concentration of various functions is reflected in a particular compositive language made of sinuous shapes and geometric volumes, such as the termination of the superimposed gyms or internal helical staircase; the experimentation is also due to the fact that GIL corresponds entirely to a new type of building. Inside, the spaces are articulated like an uninterrupted flow that lacks real boundaries and closures, but the environments are differentiated by waste, unevenness, shrinkage and expansion, often placed at critical connection points or intersection.
This fluidity is due to the use of reinforced concrete and its technological features, but this does not prevent Moretti of relating to the classical language through the travertine cladding of the tower and part of the basement of the building.The access is via a circular staircase and a gate terminating near the center of Torre Littoria is clearly demonstrated here a crucial issue for the internal composition, the presence of prospective sequences. The stairs, the transparency and permeability, the succession of perspective views, the wealth of reports are different elements of modernity. The scale bodies are never hidden and contribute to a more harmonious the composition being configured as a real mode to organize sequences, both vertically and horizontally. The management of the internal space is based on a great permeability so the rooms are separated by unevenness, waste or deviations. This results in changing perspective views making clear the link between architecture and the flow of time.
