Things I Miss in Rome (Part II)

                   Things I Miss in Rome, 2nd Installment

Public Housing Projects

Decorated Vehicles

Paste-Ups

Roman Tree-Trimming

Relaxed Cats 

Bill

The New Corviale: Failed Public Housing AND Street Art Center

We've been drawn to and appalled by Corviale, the massive, kilometer long, 1970s housing project in the south of Rome, since we first saw the place more than a decade ago.  It's still there, and it's still intimidating, especially for those who, like us, obviously don't live there and don't "belong." We're voyeurs, and we know it. On the sunny early June day we visited, we were once again in awe of the sheer size of the complex, as well as its sameness; we were once again taken aback at the exterior corridors that seemed to stretch into infinity; and we were surprised at how few people we saw--Corviale seemed empty.

If that were all there was to this world-famous housing project, we would be repeating ourselves and risking boring our readers.  There's another side to today's Corviale: it's become one of Rome's premier sites for high-level wall art.

After parking the scooter in a near-vacant parking lot, we walked over to the structure.  This is the first thing we saw:

Turning right, there's this work by the artist SFHIR, a minor piece but interesting for its message, as if all of Corviale's street art had been done illegally, under cover of darkness.  We doubt it.  There's too much art here, and much of it too large and complex, to have been completed without knowledge--and permission--of the authorities.

We found the mermaid below, the first of several works that combine wall art with poetry. We asked our Roman friend MV, a professional translator, to help us with the words, and we're glad we did, because almost every line is difficult.

Here's what MV came up with, starting from the top:

Open your shutters         [serrande] there's something great to [see]
It stirs your mind, but not your senses/snake      [the rhyme is mente (mind) serpente (serpent, or                                                  snake, a reference to Corviale, whose nickname is The Serpent)]
It welcomes you in her arms                        [or breasts [seno], or lap]
The 'hood' [periferia] is a state of [my] mind  [MV adds, of course here the pun works much better in                                                English; it's obviously referring to the mental clinic next door]
People pierced by splinters            [schegge, misspelled here; MV adds that the word schegge is                       usually associated with wood, but the word trafitto is usually associated with spines/thorns]
It's been a prison         [or, it is a prison state, or if the mermaid's tail covers the word "in," it could be                                 "it did time in prison"]

Mille Grazie, MV!

And another with a message: "If you have no memory, you have no knowledge."  More snakes--again, reflecting Corviale's nickname, "serpentone" (big snake).

Some of the art is clustered in and around a small stadium (which we missed on our first trip), including a whimsical tableaux by LAC 68, one of  our favorite street artists. His "signature" is a white figure with a shopping cart (far right side).

LAC 68 also did this portrait of a woman. "Pupo" translates as kid; "geloso" as jealous. Looks like she's stroking a cat-like creature.

It was one of a number of depictions of women:

Including several by Pier the Rain, an artist unfamiliar to us:

On the level below the stadium, where there is a functioning business or two, we found the lovely "Corviale" mural that for the past few months has served as the cover photo for our romethesecondtime Facebook site:

And this piece, with some serious word content, perhaps referring to life at Corviale:

Our reality is tragic,
but it's only one fourth:
The rest is comedy.

One can laugh
at almost everything.

On the level above, the artist QWERTY has fashioned one of his well-known, playful--but also deadly serious--stick figures (left side).  Shades of Guernica?

And a painted walkway.

With a police station close by:

Aside from the wall art, and while exploring Corviale and near-environs, we found a few objects of interest.  One of them was a old rusted sign for an alimentari (a small foods store), an indication of what used to be and isn't any more.  As far as we know, there is no commerce in or near Corviale.

And across the street from Corviale proper, we saw what appeared to be an abandoned social space:

Just beyond it, a short tunnel with words by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Roman poet, novelist and film-maker known to have visited the city's public housing projects--though not this one.  He was murdered in 1975, the year construction of Corviale began.

"Beauty can pass through the strangest streets."

Within a stone's throw, an upscale sports facility, likely not intended for the mostly downscale residents of Corviale, though the complex also harbors some wealthier folks.

Corviale has a small, comfortable library:

As well as a modern art gallery!

And now, its own worthy collection of outdoor public art.

Bill

Looking for Brutalism: Balsamo Crivelli, Serenissima, and the 544

Some time ago one of our readers--we'll call him Mr. X (if, indeed, he is a man), responded to a piece we had written on Brutalist architecture.  What set off Mr. X was our statement that "There isn't much brutalism in Rome and environs."

"WTH?" began Mr. X.  "The entire 544 ATAC bus line is nothing but Roman Brutalism.  I invite you to visit here and ride it with me.  Get off, take a look at Balsamo Crivelli and tell me the entire facility isn't classic Brutalist architecture.  La Questura headquarters at Serenissima station as well. All of post-Fascist Rome is as Brutalist as it comes. How can you have missed it?  Dear God, come see it! Rome is almost entirely Brutalist.  Look at her government architecture.  I live here!"

The 544

RST didn't ride the 544 with Mr. X, but we did, indeed, take the 544 bus from Balsamo Crivelli to Serenissima station.  Despite asking a dozen people where the Questura might be found, we never found the headquarters to which Mr. X refers, and an internet search revealed no Questura within a mile and a half.

What we did find is the subject of this post. But first a little background on Brutalism.  As used by scholars, the term Brutalism refers to an architectural movement of the mid-1950s through the 1970s. The word Brutalism derives from the French term beton brut (raw concrete), the material identified with Brutalism.  Buildings made with raw, unfinished, and uncovered concrete often have a fortress-like feel and appearance.  Then there are the "brick brutalists," who combine detailed brickwork with concrete.

So, whether you're talking about Brutalism or Brick Brutalism, you've gotta have concrete, and it has to be "raw"--that is, unfinished.  It doesn't count as Brutalist if it's covered with marble, or even if it's covered with a concrete finish, such as stucco.  There are thousands of stucco buildings in Rome, but none of them are Brutalist by the standard architectural definition.

Some of the post-1960 apartment buildings that line Viale della Serenissima.  "Brutal" perhaps--that's a matter of
taste--but not Brutalist.  

Brutalism is most often identified with government buildings, universities, shopping centers, and housing projects.  Architects have generally avoided using the term.  And, importantly for the Mr. X argument--the term has more recently become part of the popular discourse, referring (says Wikipedia) to "buildings of the late-twentieth century that are large or unpopular--as a synonym for "brutal."

To our knowledge, the only Brutalist
structure in Serenissima.

Here's the bottom line: neither Serenissima nor Balsamo Crivelli has many buildings that qualify as Brutalism by their use of raw concrete.  We found only one such building in Serenissima: curiously, a church bell tower.

And Balsamo Crivelli has one, maybe two.  Nor did we find much raw concrete on the ride between the two suburbs.

The Autostrade HQ, ahead center right.

The headquarters of the Autostrade, which lies just outside the center of Balsamo Crivelli, is
standard, government-issue late modernism, but it isn't Brutalism.

All concrete all the time.  Brutalist.  The Soviet look.

Just to the south of the Autostrade building is an apartment complex that seems to us to qualify as Brutalism.  We first saw it from the 544, again on our walk back.   









Both places have plenty of large apartment buildings, many of them without distinction, some of them downright ugly.  Most are not Brutalist, but the one on the left, above, is.

Corviale-esque in its length and sameness.  But unlike Corviale, it's not concrete.

And Serenissima has a large apartment complex made up of identical, stucco-covered buildings, one after the other, receding into the distance (below).  Not enticing, but not Brutalism.

Looks like "projects."  You might not want to live there, but it's not Brutalism.

In short, Balsamo Crivelli and Serenissima have many buildings that are "large" and "unpopular" (for Mr. X, a at least)--that is, "brutalist" with a small "b," buildings that look "brutal" (again, to Mr. X, at least). Aside: Serenissima is a generally unappealing place, but it does have a new, chic, modern bar/wine bar.

Amidst all those big apartment buildings and "projects," this
elegant coffee/wine bar.  Estro, Viale della Serenissima 67

Balsamo Crivelli is centered on a park that could be elegant, or at least attractive, were it not so overgrown.  Across the street from the park we found a building that, while perhaps not Brutalist in the classic sense, was shockingly so by the cultural definition--and has a Brutalist feature.

One of the ends of the "U"

The ends of the U-shaped building, facing the street, seem to be mostly raw concrete.  The interior of the U is leavened by the balcony railings.  But the centerpiece of the building--the mass of concrete that apparently feeds underground garages--took us by storm.

Ground level shops, now mostly abandoned, swallowed
by the concrete pit.

It's both Brutalist and brutal--one of the ugliest interior courtyards ever designed.  The architect expected that the space just above the parking area--the ground floor of the apartments--would be lined with shops.  But they're mostly gone, victims of that concrete pit below.

According to one source, Brutalist structures often express in the most obvious way "the main functions and people flows of the buildings."  That's what is happening here. From the street one can see where people live, where they are expected to shop, and--especially in this case--where they'll park.

RST would like to thank "Mr. X" for his comment; for helping us work out some of the issues; for getting us into two interesting and seldom-visited neighborhoods, both remarkably close to central Rome; and for leading us to that new wine bar.  Now if only we can find the Questura.

Bill

Rome: Italy's Capital...of Evictions

Pigneto mural.  The flag says "STOP Sfratti"

"Rome is Italy's capital of evictions," announces professor of Urban Studies Pierpaolo Mudu in a recent essay on housing.  According to Mudu, about 6700 eviction orders were issued in 2011, and since 1983 actual evictions have average 2850 every year.  About 60% of evictions occur because tenants can't or wouldn't pay the rent, most of the rest because a rental contract had expired.

The Italian word for evictions is "sfratti."

Ar bottom: "Together we block evictions."  

The odd thing about evictions is one seldom sees them happening.  No heap of furniture outside, no
tearful tenants being dragged from their doorways. That's because today, most evictions take place on Rome's periphery, where the city's working class and poor reside, rather than in the tourist-heavy Centro.













That wasn't always the case.  In the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of ordinary Romans were evicted from their center-city homes and apartments to make way for the broad avenues and vehicles favored by the Fascist regime.  They were moved to borgate (villages, hamlets), including Acilia, built from scratch in 1923, about 15 km outside the city.  Later, those evicted--both from legal and illegal housing (borgetti) were moved to Magliana (built at the end of the 1960s), and to public housing built at Laurentino 38, Tor Bella Monaca, and Corviale.

Typical post-war public housing.  Centocelle area.  

For much of the early twentieth century, Rome governments, whether Fascist or democratic, built  a lot of public housing.  Some of it, as in close-in Garbatella, was well-designed and produced workable communities. And some of it--Corviale is a famous example--was poorly designed, alienating from the start.

Beginning in about 1980 (coinciding with Reagan's election in the United States), city governments showed little interest in public housing, even as housing absorbed a larger and larger percentage of household income, and evictions continued apace.

Squatters in EUR, c. 1940

Thousands of  people found accommodations as squatters, living in unoccupied quarters in housing projects, or in shanty towns without public services.  In the 1970s there were forced relocations from Valle Aurelia, Mandrione, Prenestino and Casilino to "dormitories" in Corviale, Laurentino 38, and Spinaceto.

Idroscalo, once again threatened with demolition.

Today there is apparently only one borgetto (an illegally constructed neighborhood) left in Rome: Idroscalo, on the coast. About 100 of the homes in Idroscalo were bulldozed in 2011, and it seems clear that the authorities would like to level the remaining buildings to make way for a large marina, a resort hotel, and other amenities they think will attract tourists with money.

Vicolo Savini, after evictions of Rom (Roma) in 2011

It's tempting to blame the evictions on insensitive right-wing mayors, like Gianni Alemanno, and indeed he was responsible for the 2011 evictions from 4 unauthorized encampments, in Tiburtina and vicolo Savini (across the river from the Marconi neighborhood), most of whose residents were Roma (sometimes called "Rom," sometimes "gypsies").  But the center-left hasn't been much better.  In 2005, Walter Veltroni (who wrote an introduction to our first book, Rome the Second Time) authorized the eviction of hundreds of Senegalese and Italians from Residence Roma, a building near Forte Bravetta on Rome's north end.

Communist Party poster opposing
evictions.  Posted by a Quadraro committee,
but this one was in Torpignattara.  

Resistance to evictions, and more generally to inadequate housing, was in the post-war years led by the Communist Party, which sought to help residents of the borgate by working to legalize illegal housing.  Although not the force it was years ago, the party remains active in opposing evictions.

Graffiti in San Basilio, commemorating the 30th anniversary
 of the 1974 deadly clash with police over evictions
 (reading "San Basilio: Same Dignity, Same Anger, 1974-2014")

After 1970, the main form of resistance was squatting--that is, the illegal occupation of empty apartments and buildings, including public housing projects--along with demands for lower rents.  At one protest in San Basilio in September 1974, a young left-wing activist was killed in a clash with police.

Today, some of San Basilio's "projects" are decorated with handsome multi-story murals, including a group of 6 by Hitnes.  Even so, if the posters and graffiti in San Basilio and similar neighborhoods are any indication, evictions continue, and with them, new efforts at resistance.

Bill

"Rent is Robbery. Occupy"     Pigneto.