BIOGRAPHY

Marcella Morlacchi, architect, was born, lives and works in Rome, where she has a home and study and where she has worked for years in the fields of urban planning, construction and interior design. He has participated in congresses, conventions, television debates and exhibitions, obtaining numerous awards and prizes.

At the invitation of cultural associations that promote the knowledge and protection of historic Rome often takes guided tours and conferences.

He illustrated with his drawings and with his watercolors numerous books, magazines and weekly magazines of a scientific and informative nature (The streets of Rome, the Rioni di Roma, The guides Gallimard, Rome yesterday, today and tomorrow), school books and art books, obtaining numerous and positive reviews in the press.

In March 1984 he won the Competition for qualifications and exams at a post of Researcher at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and took up his post at the Dept. of Representation and Rilievo, where he teaches in Drawing and Relief Courses, Architecture, Tools and Methods for Architectural Survey. He is also in charge of the discipline for the Techniques of the Representation and the Course of Drawing and Surveying for the School directed for special purposes for the detection and representation of Architectural Heritage.
In 1994 he obtained the Silver Plate UID.

In 1999 he won the National Competition for Associate Professor of Drawing, and teaches Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture of Pescara, University of G. D’Annunzio (Chieti), and at the Faculty of Architecture of Rome “La Sapienza” he is a lecturer in the School of Specialization in Restoration of Monuments.

His watercolor reliefs of the squares and streets of the historic center of Rome, executed with a purely scientific purpose, soon began to be widely appreciated even outside the circle of experts. In fact “their beauty, the freshness of the colors, the accuracy of the details make works very enjoyable both on the aesthetic and on the knowledge of the city: they are precious and faithful testimonies of historical Rome at the threshold of this third millennium.” His watercolors, published in the monthly magazine “ROMA IERI OGGI DOMANI” by Newton Compton, of urban spaces in Rome and beyond, have long been the protagonists of numerous exhibitions and publications and reviewed in various locations. Some of them have been made in numbered chromolithographs that are requested by prestigious clients, by organizations and authorities to pay tribute to foreign guests.

Morlacchi’s research on the color of the historic city, its watercolors on the fronts of some historic streets and squares of Rome, today constitute a point of reference and basic material for all those involved in the study of the color of Rome.

This work, which over the years has gradually assumed a character that we could define encyclopedic, has been published in various locations and, in addition to the squares and streets of which some representations of the main elevations are proposed, includes numerous other studies of both spaces urban areas that of individual buildings, both in Rome and in the surrounding area.

The work of geometric relief of the facades, “executed – as Mario Docci writes – with scientific precision and craftsmanship accuracy” in scale 1: 200, on which the color detected on the masonry surfaces was reproduced with the watercolor technique, has always been accompanied by a thorough historical research on the events of buildings and urban spaces.

The design and color are absolutely faithful to the situation in fact at the time of representation. The work thus represents a sort of “photograph” of streets and squares of the historic center of the city at the dawn of this third millennium.

In twenty-one issues of the Newton Compton magazine “Rome yesterday, today and tomorrow”, between 1988 and 1991, all the work carried out until then was published.

In 2000 he was commissioned by the Color Plan of the Island of Ponza, for the protection of the image of the island, and the reliefs of the façades of the entire island from the sea, represented in eight large and colorful tables.
In 2004 he created the “Plan for the Protection of the Image of the Urban Area of the Municipality of Rome II: Color Plan and Urban Furniture Plan”, completed in 2006 and approved in 2008.

In 2006 he won the competition for the drafting of the Ventotene Color Plan.

In 2007 the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities entrusted her with the task of drawing up the graphic and chromatic image of the City of Rome at 360 ° seen from the top of the Quadrighe del Vittoriano. The views of Rome, in hard pencil and watercolor, presented to the President of the Republic, to the Minister of Cultural Assets and Activities and to the Mayor of Rome, are on permanent display on the terrace of the Vittoriano in Rome.

In 2011 the Poligrafico chooses one of the four views to create the stamp for the 150th anniversary of Roma Capitale, presented at the Campidoglio on 21st April 2011.
In 2011 she was appointed President of the Commission for the Elaboration of the Image Protection Plan (Color and Urban Furniture) of the Urban Area of ​​Rome Capital.

On 2 December 2015, the Municipality of Fiumicino entrusted her with the task of technical collaboration in the feasibility study of the Urban Furnishing Plan in Via di Torre Clementina and in the Recovery of the Borgo Marinaro del Valadier.

Also in December 2015, he received the kind letter from the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who praised the chromolithographs.

In 2015, commissioned by the Vignola Foundation, he realizes, with the watercolor technique, the chromatic graphic relief in 1:50 scale of the east and west elevations of the Castello Ludovisi Boncompagni (the Rocca di Vignola) and in particular reports on them a hypothesis of the chromatic decoration on the high end of the Rocca and its towers (based on an image created by Gino Mandrone in 1931). The watercolors of the decorated bands were projected on the walls of the Rocca on 5 September 2015.

Marcella Morlacchi – The Architect of Color

The true color of Rome in the wonderful drawings by Marcella Morlacchi

Luxury prints on fine papers to enhance your spaces

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