"Si fondano le Città"
I. The Exhibition

The competition brief for Sabaudia was issued 21 April 1933. and the drawings were due on May 25. On 25 July 1933, the ONC exhibited the thirteen different drafts for Sabaudia in their vast offices in Via Ulpiano 11, Rome. The exhibition got immense coverage in the press. Here were exhibited both the thirteen entries from the first round of the competition, as well as the four from the second, where only Oriolo Frezzotti (1888–1965), Angelo Vicario, and the team of Gino Cancellotti (1896–1987), Eugenio Montuori (1907–1982), Luigi Piccinato (1899–1982) and Alfredo Scalpelli (1898–1966) were invited to participate from the entries from the first round. Cancellotti, Montuori, Piccinato and Scalpelli won the competition and were rewarded with the first prize of itl 20.000,-. Vicario came in second, and Frezzotti got third prize.

According to Il Popolo d’Italia Vicario was “inspired by the criterium to give Sabaudia a large panoramic square opening up towards the Lago di Paola… genuinely Italian, and quadrangular, with buildings bordering on three sides of the square, and one open towards the solemn Circeo.”[1] Vicario’s project is the favorite of Il lavoro fascista’s reporter who praises his lightly colored entry drawings “given a character of airy, Meditteranean elegance, rather countryside-like, to the different heights of the buildings.”[2]

Frezzotti suggests a division into several distinct centers in his competition entry; A center for the ONC’s agricultural agency (the largest); a political center; a welfare center; two sports centers; one industrial center; one center for sanitation; and one for bathing. In connection with the bathing center, he foresees the construction of a bridge over the lake (as does the project of the Gruppo del Quattro) to connect Sabaudia directly with the sea.[3] The author using the signature “a.n.” points out the same aspects in his article.[4]

The winning team competed under the name of Gruppo del Quattro, or “Group of four.” Their project was reported to be “inspired by the concept of arranging the populated areas of Sabaudia round about two airy squares; one destined for the civil life of the municipality (public offices, shops, coffee bar, gathering places, etc.), and the second for the big rural and political rallies.”[5] On the same day the Corriere della Sera, Il Piccolo and Il Messagero repeats almost verbatum the words of this article. One suspects they are merely repeating the text of a press release (or a dictate by the state?). The projects for the buildings were described as being “inspired by a grand sense of modernity without loosing out of sight the practicality.”[6]

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