Italian starchitect
Massimiliano Fukas on Tuesday presented his long-awaited
'Nuvola' (Cloud) building in the southern Fascist-era EUR
district of Rome.
Speaking at the foreign press club, Fuksas said the
futuristic project has taken 18 years - "far too long".
He said that for this reason it would be his last project
in Rome.
"The only thing that got me through was my Roman
determination", he said.
Fuksas said it was "essential to fill the space with art,
concerts, and events".
The Nuvola ended up costing 239 million euros against an
higher tender estimate, 275 million, Fuksas said.
The architect said he did not know whether he would be
present at the building's inauguration on Saturday.
The actual construction of the Cloud convention centre took
eight years.
A contest to name the convention centre is underway, with
the chosen moniker to be announced on live television at the
inauguration ceremony.
In three to five years, when the convention centre located
in Rome's EUR business district is up and running at full
capacity, it's expected to bring in between 300 and 400 million
euros annually.
The structure is made of 20,000 tonnes of steel - almost
three times more than the iron used for the Eiffel Tower - and
cost about 300 million euros (VAT excluded) to build, said
Duccio Astaldi of construction company Condotte.
The convention centre can host up to 8,000 people overall,
including 6,000 in the plenary room, which sprawls over 9,000
square metres, and 1,762 in the auditorium.
The forum level houses a 6,000-square-metre multipurpose
space under the auditorium, held up by 14,000 square metres of
fibreglass - the "cloud" itself.
The centre boasts 15 elevators, eight of which are
panoramic, and there's also a 439-room luxury hotel built right
into the structure.
Roberto Diacetti, president of EUR Spa, which manages
properties in the EUR district including the Cloud, said that
the congress centre's opening in the district will put it on the
same level as other large European capitals in terms of
convention tourism.
The Cloud has already secured its first big conference,
beating out Glasgow and Barcelona for the International Bar
Association's 2018 annual conference, with over 6,000 delegates
expected from around the world.
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