The Buildings of the Official Commission

In compliance with the text of the competition, the buildings analyzed and documented in this chapter are those commissioned by the regime.[1] Sabaudia was actually not built on the drained swampland so often associated with the Pontine region, but on sandy dunes. Due to the dangers of building on such ground special precautions needed to be taken and thus among other things the height of the buildings—as in the other towns—was restricted to two storys. Furthermore were the foundations of all the buildings made on top of plattings of reinforced concrete (as were many of the mural frameworks). Three years before the restrictions on the use of scarse materials was imposed on pre-war Italy,[2] the construction of Sabaudia could be carried out since modern materials and techniques were part and parcel of modern architecture. The masonry is in tuff stone or limestone from Circe.[3] Other building materials continuously used are bricks, different types of travertine stone. Iron, marble, and glass were used to accentuate different building parts. The walls are mostly covered in a yellow or warm orange colored stucco, but on the more official buildings, parts of the brick walls are often left uncovered. The regime tended to use travertine to emphasize important public buildings, often, as is the case in Sabaudia, only covering parts of the walls with it. In Sabaudia, the church’s front façade, the baptistery, the first floor of the Town Hall, in addition to its tower, parts of the school’s and the Opera Nazionale Balilla building, the War Veterans’ club, in addition to the hospital, the maternity and infancy center, and the porticoes around the main square, the Piazza della Rivoluzione are covered with travertine.

The different building types are placed according to their function. The Slaughterhouse complex, the Cemetery, the Water Tower, the Hospital and the Maternity and Infancy Center, as well as the Sports Field were all placed on the outskirts of town, not being institutions one necessarily frequented every day.[4] Residential areas are placed around the center core, combined apartment and shop edifices in the center proper, and in the heart of town, bordering on the main square, you find both the Town Hall with its tower, the Casa del Fascio, the Unions, the National Afterwork Foundation, the War Veterans’ Club, in addition to the Hotel, Restaurant, Bar, Cinema/Theater, and Shops. The Religious Center is put in a smaller square, the Piazza Regina Margherita, somewhat withdrawn from the center proper, but still visible, and connected with the main square by the broad avenue Largo Giulio Cesare, creating an impressive view from the ceremonial part of the Piazza della Rivoluzione, with three towers—that of the Town Hall, the Fascist Headquarters, and the Church belfry lined up along both sides of an axis.

Some of the town’s openness is due to the restriction on height. Actually there is only one tall building in Sabaudia, the Azienda Agraria, or onc headquarters. The consistent use of flat roofs throughout town also adds to this openness. (The buildings in the three first Pontine towns are all with flat roofs.) The green lungs connect the town to the surrounding landscape.

I have chosen to follow Spiro Kostof’s four categories proposed in The City Assembled. Here different urban sectors are grouped according to specialized civic functions: The administrative district, “where the ruling authority resides”; the religious district; the district of business and commerce; and, the residential component of the urban structure.[5]