Public Housing with Sixty Apartments and Thirty Shops

Architects: Cancellotti, Montuori, Piccinato, Scalpelli

Sabaudia was no regular housing project of the Fascist regime’s. It was planned for war veterans (the proclaimed martyrs of the Fascist regime), and furthermore Sabaudia was also of enormous importance as a public relations stunt both at home and abroad. Thus spending the extra money on these homes was rationalized and affordable. As I will show, the Sabaudian homes were rather spatious, with commodities such as bathrooms, w.c.s, kitchen gardens, etc. This was however not the case with other projects the regime planned and carried out. If we take a closer look at some of the other homes that were constructed in the 1930s in Milan and Rome, a completely different story emerges. In 1933–34 three new precincts were constructed in the periphery of Milan: Baggina, Trecca, and Bruzzano. Here families consisting of as many as six members were stuffed into 30 m² apartments without running water or w.c.s. And in 1936 the Istituto Autonomo per le Case Popolare planned the scandalous project later referred to as the “Villaggio Duce.” This village was intended for the outskirts of Milan with the intention of isolating people sick with tuberculosis and their families. Thus they would be segregated from the rest of the population, and the state could save the cost to treat these people in sanatories.[1] Likewise, in Rome twelve borgate, or “scraps of town” as Kostof translates the term, were constructed to house the Roman population that had been evicted from their homes as large chunks of the city core were demolished. These ersatz communities were constructed in open country ten miles or more to the east, away from the city proper, the only connection being railroad lines. These working-class suburbs “consisted of rows of plain single-family dwellings which, at least in the beginning, shared communal services such as water and sanitation facilities.”[2] Many of the borgate lacked a proper infrastructure. For instance the Borgata Gordiani between Via Prenestina and Via Casilina consisted of different barracks that lacked both water and w.c. In fact, 25 w.c.s were installed to serve a population of 5,000 people.[3] To use Estermann-Juchler’s expression; in the cases of these two large cities the rationalist postulate of the “casa minimum” (minimum house) was perverted to “minima spesa” (minimum cost) under the aegis of the Fascist housing institute.[4] But there were a few decent exceptions. In addition to Sabaudia, there was for instance the Fabio Filzi precinct in Milan. Here two-, three- and four room flats were constructed, all with their own w.c., kitchen, and balcony. Separate buildings contained bath tubs, showers, laundries and drying rooms. The exception was the three room apartments with their own bathrooms. This new residential district housed 1,488 inhabitants, something that gives 1,67 persons per room. Rents were calculated from the total costs, and were so low that a worker with his family actually could afford to live there.[5]

 Sabaudia

Three basic housing types were designed for the development plan of Sabaudia: single family or semi-detached houses, two-story apartment blocks, and terraced housing. The last type was never built. Six different versions of semi-detached units were designed and built alongside one of the main streets, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele iii, between the post office and the Piazzale Roma—“to provide a model for future upper-market development.”[6] Several different apartment blocks line the central streets with first floor shops and workshops and dwellings above. The architects intended “to avoid the monotony of industrialised housing which characterised many Italian and European rationalist housing schemes and neighbourhoods” by providing different typological solutions.[7]