Lulu Blog

Federica (left) and Diana Balmori

That’s right! Lulu made an appearance recently at the Festa dell’Architettura, a meeting of the most creative urban designers, architects, artists, authors, professors, graduate students, and politicians in Italy. The purpose of this event was to exchange ideas to better the wonderful metropolis of Rome. Because Rome is such an ancient city, 2,000 years of buildings often impede progress. This event inspired a rebirth and revitalization of urban planning.

Lulu was there this year, to show these remarkable thinkers how our open publishing model creates opportunities for them to publish, profit, and connect with a larger audience.

I met great people and chatted with them while sipping Prosecco. I had the opportunity to introduce Lulu to a room full of Romans in the beautiful downtown Galleria di Architettura Come Se, directed by Rosetta Angelini, on two different occasions. I also met New Yorkers like Diana Balmori, an internationally renowned landscape and urban designer, and Lulu author.

After I presented and introduced Lulu, Dario Marcucci, President of Terzo Municipio of Rome, came to me and we spoke for a while. His words describing Lulu were “this is simply brilliant.”

The most exhilarating part of this experience was during the last night at the very end of the event. Out of nowhere, Professor Antonino Saggio, the Scientific Curator of the conference, spoke about the journey of all these numerous projects coming together to better the city of Rome, and all the struggles and difficulties they went through in order to make this event possible. He concluded his speech with “we will write a book about this long lasting endeavor and will publish it with Lulu!”

I believe the sense of excitement was not induced by the Prosecco.