The great Basilica of the Roman Forum is once again a public space

At the heart of the Roman Forum – a geographical core that has always characterised this city – the Basilica of Maxentius is like a giant, silent animal that has seen emperors, collapses and ever-changing worlds. The wind blowing through its naves is all that remains the same.

It is no longer enough to preserve it like a relic; that is not the point today. The idea is to bring it back to life in the form of movement, a journey and spaces that invite use.

Built by Maxentius and completed by Constantine, the basilica was one of ancient Rome’s largest buildings. Then it became a huge, unspeaking ruin. But like everything in this city, it has always been touched by modernity. In the 1960 Olympics, its immense arches were a venue for wrestling. Bodies, sweat, noise, life.

Years later, when Rome seemed abandoned, Renato Nicolini – with his sweet and lucid folly – spawned the Estate Romana, with films projected onto the ruins of the past. The city boldly awoke at night, inviting citizens to use it in a different way.

Tourists besiege it, hurriedly viewing it almost out of duty. Meanwhile, Rome has a fervent need for something else, to be reinvented, because every part of this city has a vocation for continuous reuse.

Today, another story begins on this ancient site, a project by Alvisi Kirimoto made up of three simple, almost timid gestures.
Without shouting or invading, a modular, lightweight stage in the central nave seems to say, “Shall we do something together?”
Then, a new path guides visitors’ steps and eyes, not to constrain but to suggest, welcoming the public fluidly and intuitively while creating new visual and spatial connections between the basilica’s different parts.
Lastly, two information totems enrich the visitor experience, offering accessible and interactive historical and narrative content. Like small lanterns in the night, they remind us that this is where the space of a modern city is born.

Everything is made with materials that do not seek to dominate: steel, earth, lime and wood. It is a fragile balance, like all important things that leave a trail for other projects to come.

The intervention restores the basilica as a public space, a “covered square” of the ancient city. The events it will host will not be a forced addition, but a continuation of its historical role: a place of meeting and collective participation; not a museum, but a space where things happen.

This project elegantly and sincerely attempts to tell us that Rome must continue in this way, touching the past without gripping too tightly or restraining. So perhaps the basilica is no longer just the remains of something that once was, but of what can happen again. This operation demonstrates how new life can be breathed into an age-old monument without betraying it, transforming it from a simple witness of the past into a living space of the city.