San Giovanni
station

Station Entrances

The station is equipped with two separate entrances. The main entrance, located at the central platform of Largo Brindisi, has two diametrically opposite entrances, served by a total of two fixed staircases and two escalators. Additionally, there is a pair of elevators that connect the street level with the atrium level. The second entrance is located at Piazzale Appio and provides access to the station via a fixed staircase. The surface area has been restored, creating a larger garden area compared to its original state, with sidewalks and pedestrian walkways of sufficient width to ensure proper use by citizens.

To create the connection between Line C and Line A, the Line C tunnels, constructed using traditional excavation methods, passed underneath the existing Line A station through the use of significant consolidation technologies such as injections of cementitious and chemical mixtures and the technique of artificial ground freezing. Due to this underpassing and to ensure the continuous operation of Line A, a temporary support structure for the tracks was designed and implemented during the ground freezing and tunnel excavation phases, along with an extensive in-progress monitoring system to guarantee structural deformation control and the necessary support for decision-making processes.

Another important aspect related to the construction of the underpass is the elimination of interference detected between the foundation piles of the existing station and the Line C tunnels through the reshaping of the piles downstream of the completion of the final tunnel lining. This reshaping was carried out using horizontal cuts with diamond wire, from top to bottom, and subsequently, steel bands were welded to the pile’s reinforcement to restore its continuity, ultimately creating a specific protective casing.

End benefit and sustainability

The excavation and construction of the San Giovanni station represent a significant turning point in the realm of urban mobility in the Capital, providing a crucial interchange hub with Line A of the subway, enhancing the city’s network effect, and facilitating rapid connectivity between the city center and its outlying areas. Additionally, the station has offered an exceptional opportunity for the expansion of knowledge about ancient Rome and the enhancement of artifacts through a museum project that allows subway users to access them. The external landscaping project for the station includes the creation of a garden on Largo Brindisi, covering an area of approximately 500 square meters.

In relation to these significant findings, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism and the Special Superintendency for Archaeological Heritage of Rome (SSBAR), in granting permission for the dismantling of the ancient structures discovered during the excavation, requested the development of a specific exhibition project within the station’s public spaces that would illustrate the history of the site through the repositioning of some of the ancient structures and discovered artifacts.

The metro stations are part of complex infrastructural systems, serving the city and the lives of its citizens, and they typically find their purpose in their operational dimension. For San Giovanni station, the challenge was to transform the spaces from simple functional areas into true “places” within the city, each with its own identity and character. Conveying the history of these places and the succession of vital activities, along with the traces they inevitably left behind, seemed to be the most effective way to achieve this goal. The entire setup operation was carried out with the aim of being able to communicate the complexity of Rome’s underground and of this particular place. Operational tools for physically constructing this narrative were all the boundary surfaces: walls, floors, and ceilings, with the first two taking on the role of the primary communication devices.

Main Elements of the Narrative

• The stratigrapher, a figure repeated multiple times within the station spaces, places the user in time and space, assuming the fundamental role of a guide to navigate the confined spaces of the station, thanks to its function as a graphic indicator of the depth of historical contexts relative to the contemporary city’s level.
• Images: some of the material traces resulting from the life that has flowed in these places for millennia, recovered during the construction of the station, have become representative iconic figures of their time and appear, rendered through an out-of-scale graphic process, as identifying marks of different phases.
• Written words: a series of texts comment on and accompany the chronological development of the stratigrapher, outlining the vertical surfaces according to two different narrative registers: one highlights some of the events that have influenced the infrastructural changes in the city of Rome throughout history or characterized some significant historical-social aspects; the other focuses on the area’s transformations, particularly the changes brought about by the way it manages the large quantity of water that has always characterized the area.
• The archaeological artifacts displayed along the horizontal connecting levels of the atrium and the correspondence level, with the creation of specially designed exhibition areas for each group of artifacts. The heterogeneity of the materials has led to the identification of a series of major themes through which to aggregate the artifacts. Each exhibition area is identified by a slogan that suggests a possible interpretation: the recycled artifact; fragments tell stories; the mystery of the seal; living with water; the arrival of peaches.