Ostia's Garbatella - 1926 public housing and a WWII bomb shelter

Ostia, a town along the Mediterranean Sea not far from Rome - the new, not the ancient Ostia - is partly a creation of the Fascists. It was founded earlier, in 1884. Later the Mussolini government invested massively in it, resulting in many buildings of the 1920s and 1930s style architecture (the famous post office, among them).

Public housing ("case popolari") was first constructed in Ostia in 1926 and bears all the markings of the pre-modern architecture that was built shortly before the Fascists fell in love with modernism. The Ostia buildings most resemble those of Rome's Garbatella quarter, or of the quarter of Monte Sacro, built along the lines of a "garden city" in the1910s and 1920s. The state of the infrastructure is sadly poor, but the basic design of the complex is still lovely and worth exploring.

Above, one of the grand terraces, with an enormous Michelangelo-like cornice and citations to the Roman arches, that makes one think one is in Garbatella (as well as evidence of crumbling stucco).

The lead photo at the top gives a sense of the wonderful detail of early 19th century public housing, including small balconies, and especially portholes and the ship bas relief (top photo and photo at right), echoing Ostia's life as a port since Roman times.

The brief description of the tour we took described the housing project in these terms:

"There exists in Ostia a place where one seems to turn back in time to find oneself walking through Garbatella in the '20s...."  The architect was Camillo Palmerini, who designed the buildings "on the model of a building with an open courtyard. The arches, chimneys, the loggias, the small columns, the corners, the large cornices, all are examples of the so-called 'barocchetto romano,' a term coined by Gustavo Giovannoni in the '20s to identify the style used in Garbatella, today, an ideal dialog with the mosaics of Ostia Antica, colored with local elements of ocean inspiration - boats and marine animals."

In the basement (cantina) of the building complex were other reminders of history: exhortations to support Mussolini and the King, still visible on the walls of what was a bomb shelter for the residents. Below are two double V signs meaning "viva" or "long live" and then Il Duce and Il Re (the Duce, i.e., Mussolini, and the King) [love the brooms lined up against the wall too]/

We had a fairly intense discussion with a friend - a renown scholar of Fascism - who posits that retaining these "memories" of Fascism is not conducive to democracy. We appreciate the discourse, but in this case, disagree. [More photos of these 'writings' are at the end of this post.]

At left, the sign - in the same typescript - is an arrow pointing to the "Security Exit" (what Americans would term an Emergency Exit). Again, this is a leftover from the war, covered with modern electrical mechanics, and mostly ignored (like the one above) as text.

Above, our tour group in the basement/cantina.

The buildings also have beautiful staircases, with unusual angles, photo at right. We know the Romans love their staircases, witness the Bernini-Borromini Palazzo Barberini, as well as Luigi Moretti's in Trastevere's L'ex GIL (written about in our posts, as linked).

Our inside look at this complex, including its cantina, was courtesy of Open House Roma, which had a special focus on Ostia last year. At left, the crumbling arch through which we entered and sign at right of the OHR tour.

Adjacent to these beautiful, unrestored buildings is modern-day housing - which we eyed while having a coffee across the street.  Not bad, but one can't imagine having a tour of these 100 years after their construction.

Another stop on our tour was a brief look at this column, which once marked the end of via del Mare, the "road to the sea" that Mussolini constructed starting near the Colosseum and ending here in Ostia. The plinth now sports a bust of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the once "bad boy" of Italian arts, who was murdered on the outskirts of Ostia (another RST post features the park in his memory - near the murder site) [small photo above from Google Street View]. It once - as we recall - sported a bust of Mussolini. How times change (thankfully)!

More of the writings on the wall, beginning with the one below: "Mussolini - today more than ever - is right."

Below: not all the "saying" is visible, because of the light fixtures put over them (and note garbage cans below), but something to the effect of "don't worry about...who, for YOU it's best...."

Dianne

PS - another post on a location adjacent to Ostia is RST's on the self-built, basically squatter community of Idroscalo.

Before and After: the Stairway to Piazza Brin, Garbatella

It's been devilishly difficult to find a photo--any photo--of the stairway leading up from via Alessandro Cialdi to Piazza Brin, in Garbatella.  I couldn't find such a photo in the tens of thousands of Rome photos taken by RST since 1989.  And a lengthy search of the internet turned up only the photo below.  It was taken sometime in the 1920s, when most of Garbatella did not yet exist.  It reveals the stairway walls to be rather handsome, made of stone that's been employed as a design element as well as a structural one.   It's a fitting entrance to the piazza above, and just beyond the piazza, to the historic entrance to Garbatella, the entrance and its flanking buildings designed by Innocenzo Sabbatini and completed in 1922.

Sadly, the Piazza Brin stairs no longer have the elegance they once had.  In 1989, when we first saw them, they were not only overgrown with weeds but littered with needles left by drug dealers and users.  Today, the stairs are no better maintained, and the walls have become a favorite haunt of taggers and graffiti artists, including some who claim to be making political statements or support the Roma soccer club (Roma/Sud--i.e., Roma fans on the south curve on the Stadio Olimpico).  Steel railings, to keep folks from driving vehicles on the stairs, were in place.  In 2012, the stairway looked like this:

Even so, the side elements of the stairway remained fairly clean.

By the spring of 2017, most of the open areas had been filled in.  The Roma cheerleading had been replaced by standard lettered graffiti, its meaning unknown (to this viewer).  And the 2012 "Carlo Vive" was now on the left side wall, complete with a painting of Carlo.  The splendid view of the buildings of Garbatella, available in 1925, was covered by bushes and trees.  And the bottom of the stairs has become a site for garbage collection and recycling.

Who Carlo is, and why there's so much interest in him is a story that remains to be told.  The words "Carlo Vive" (Carlo lives) present on the Brin stairs in 2012 and 2017, are solid evidence that Carlo is dead. [For information about Carlo, see the first comment, below].

Bill

Piero Bruno: Political Soul of Garbatella

"A Piero Bruno...Chi Sogna Non Muore"  (To Piero Bruno...those who dream, never die)

A stroll through Garbatella--a neighborhood south of central Rome, built as public housing in the 1920s and 1930s, and then as now strongly identified with the political left--will inevitably introduce
one to the name and face of Piero Bruno.  In a sense, Bruno represents Garbatella's radical, militant, in-your-face history and image. Knowing something of Bruno's past, you'll understand better what Garbatella is about, and better appreciate the political fissures--rooted in World War II and the postwar era--that continue to divide Romans and Italians.

Marchers from the Armellino Technical Institute

Piero was born on 8 December, 1957.  He lived with his parents and two sisters in Garbatella and attended the Armellino Technical Institute in the next suburb to the south, San Paolo.

The 1970s was an intense political era in Italy--not unlike the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States.  Piero was involved with the Lotta Continua ("the struggle continues"), a far-left organization founded in 1969 as a spin-off of the student/worker movement in Turin.  Lotta Continua encouraged radicalism and militancy and had a hand in setting up social centers in Italian cities.

Possibly a photo of the demonstration in which Bruno was shot.

On November 22, 1975, Piero participated in a large march/demonstration--some 2,000 people--in support of the Republic of Angola's struggle for independence from the colonial power, Portugal.  As the marchers passed the intersection of via Muratori and largo Mecenate--near the gate of the Zaire embassy--violence broke out (that's vague, yes).  Piero was shot twice--apparently in the shoulder and the back--one shot fired by a Carabinieri (state police) and the second, while Piero lay on the ground, by a Rome police officer.  He died the next day.  No charges were filed.  The website "Maverick" sees the larger issue as the "violence of power" and blames the Christian Democrats (the party that held power through most of the postwar era), including Giulio Andreotti and Aldo Moro, high-ranking Italian politicians, both prime minister at times, for employing a "strategy of tension."

Ahead, the school named after Bruno.  The artwork has changed
little over the years.

Piero is remembered in Garbatella not only through wall paintings and a plaque--and in marches in his honor--but also through La Scuola Popolare Piero Bruno, an after-school help and social center where university students assist middle-school students with their homework on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Marching to protest Piero Bruno's death.  Judging from the winter clothing, probably fall/winter (1975).

via Passino 20

An element of what may be a Piero Bruno
walking tour in Garbatella

To locate the Piero Bruno images in Garbatella, start from Piazza Pantero Pantera, follow via Luigi Fincati southeast, past the central market and onto via Francesco Passino.  The "Chi Sogna" wall, above, is further ahead in Piazza Damiano Sauli.
Bill

How Things Change (or Don't): The Garbatella Market

It's said that Rome is Eternal, and that may be true in any number of ways too complex to get into. But having spent time in the city and taken thousands of photographs, often of features of the landscape we had photographed before, we can say with some authority that changes do occur.

The Garbatella Market is an example.  When we first went by in 2009 (or that's when we took the first photos that we still have), the iconic market stairs were in disrepair--as was the rest of the facade-- and covered with political graffiti and an ode to Sancho Panza and Don Quixote.

Two years later, the market had been restored, the stairs repaired, the brick walls cleaned, and the graffiti removed--though a few tags had appeared.  Progress!

In 2017, the stairs had been reborn as a political space--Garbatella is a leftist enclave, and the stairway's bricks, having become impossible to maintain, had been painted yellow.  The 2010 message, about the necessity of struggling against injustice, had been replaced with something similar, but also different:  "In every epoch and in every circumstance, there will always be many reasons to give up the struggle.  But without struggle, one will never have liberty."

Inside the market has changed as well.  It was once a regional city market; then (as late as 2010), it was an empty, derelict space.  Now, on Saturdays, it is a fledgling farmers' and artisans' market.

Maybe Rome--even modern Rome--is, indeed, Eternal.  Everything changes, everything stays the same.

Bill

An Ostiense View, to the south of Rome

We've been living in Ostiense, not far from the Pyramid, on the 9th floor.  Although the view from our balcony is to the south--and hence does not encompass the Centro Storico--it is in its own way, we think, not only fascinating but spectacular.  We offer it here in a 30-second sweep (wobbly, yes--we don't take many videos).  Below the video, for connoisseurs, is a left-to-right description of what you're seeing (also available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/pmxA5CEURFk)

9:30  In the distance, the Alban Hills (Colli Albani), and closer in, the beginning of the neighborhood            of Garbatella

10:00   The peak at right is Monte Cavo and beneath it and just to the left, the city of Rocca di Papa

10:30   The tall building with lettering is the headquarters of the Lazio Region, of which Rome is a                  part.  Just to its right,  the cupola of San Francesco Saverio, in Garbatella.  This was the first                parish visited by John Paul II after he became Pope.  

11:00  A Calatrava-style bridge, the Settimia Spizzichino bridge, named after a Jewish woman who               was deported to the concentration camps in October, 1943--and somehow survived, the only               Rome woman to do so.  The structure bridges the Metro "B" line and the Lido train and              connects Garbatella with the Ostiense quartiere.  

           To the right of the bridge, wall art by Clemens Behr (he also has a piece in Tor Marancia - for a fuller description, see the app, streetartroma).

11:30   Cupola of Santa Maria Regina dei Apostoli da Montagnola, c. 1950

9:30-1:00, forefront: the remains of the Mercati Generali (General Markets) of Rome, constructed c.                 1913, abandoned 2002.  Now supposedly being reconstructed, but we've seen no workers there, despite the presence of a crane.  

12:30  The slim campanile of the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura (Saint Paul outside the wall).                The church burned down and was rebuilt--sumptuously--c. 1850

1:00  The squarish building in the distance is the Colosseo Quadrato (square coliseum), formally                   known as the Palazzo della Civilta' Italiana, c. 1940, located at EUR as part of what was                       supposed to be a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Fascist March on Rome (the war                             intervened).  

          To its left, also at EUR, and only partially visible, the tower known as Il Fungo (the                             mushroom)--something like Seattle's Space Needle.  

          To its right, also at EUR, the church of Saints Peter and Paul

2:00   Across the broad via Ostiense, an old industrial area, now in part vacant, rapidly being                          transformed into housing and museums.  And beyond Ostiense, and across the nearby
           Tiber River, the Marconi quartiere

2:30    Round metal structures known as the gazometri (gas meters).  These structures once held                    expandable gas liners.  They're considered icons of Rome's industrial-era skyline.   

Fasces, Fasci: Trolling Rome for the Politics of the Past--and Present

Yes, that's the United States House of Representatives, and, on each side of the central podium, fasces, complete with the wreath that symbolizes victory.  Fasces (that's the English word, "usually construed as singular," according to my dictionary) also appear on the reverse side of the Mercury dime, on the doorways of the Oval Office, on the US Capitol Building, on the Supreme Court Building, on Lincoln's chair at the Lincoln memorial (surprise!) and (a more personal reference here), on the entrance to Buffalo, New York's Art Deco City Hall.  Fasces grace the cover of French passports and have served as national symbols for Ecuador, Cameroon, and Cuba.  Police forces in Norway, Sweden, and Romania use fasces to represent their orders.  I had no idea.

Nasone, Grottaferrata, in the Colli Albani
outside Rome.  Fasces beneath
the gold nozzle

The origins of the symbol are Italian, using that designation broadly.  The bundle of wooden sticks, bound together, and sometimes including the axe blade, has Etruscan beginnings but became prominent with its adoption by the Kingdom of Rome, then the Republic, then Imperial Rome.

The fasces were carried by Lictors (attendants), and their presence signified the power of the magistrate being attended.  Added in Republican Rome, the axe meant that the power of that particular magistrate included capital punishment.  When the fasces were brought into Rome's center the axe was removed, a sign that power resided with the people, rather than with an arbitrary and capricious magistrate.

Flagpole base, inside Cinecitta', Rome.  Naval
motifs, including fish

Millenia later, Mussolini's Fascism took its name from fasces. And that's the problem.  For a long time fasces connoted collective power, strength through unity, one out of many, e pluribus unum. Just the right symbol for an American nation constructed from a wide variety of religions and immigrants groups and states with different interests.  Then the Italian Fascists appropriated the symbol, signed a deal with the Nazis, and went to war.  They did badly, and the damage was done. The fasces symbol had been corrupted.

Fasces with modern flair, abandoned 1930s
water fountain, Colle Oppio, Rome

Doorway, somewhere in Rome

Fasces pattern in small stones.  A sidewalk in Piazza
Damiano Sauli, Garbatella (on one of Modern Rome's walks),

Intact inverted fasces, school, Centocelle, Rome

Trashing fasces in Milan, probably 1945

Plaque on wall, Garbatella.  Here, fasces are linked to the Case Popolari (public housing) built after the Great War.
The plaque (and its fasces) have been intentionally preserved.  Dated 1920, 2 years before the March on Rome.  

Underside of a marble table, Naval Ministry, Rome

High up on an industrial water tower, on the Tevere near the Industrial Bridge, Rome...

....fasces, carefully preserved

The Italian experience with a Fascist government ended in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed and, some time later, executed.  It would be comfortable to believe that Italians were united in celebrating an end to Fascism, but that's not the case.  Many Italians had deep personal (or political) investments in the regime--they had participated in it in some way, and were proud of its accomplishments--and for them Fascism's demise was unfortunate, sad, or threatening. Others, of course, were overjoyed that Mussolini's authoritarian government was gone and looked forward to living in a democracy. Still others no doubt had mixed emotions.

At upper right, this building on viale XXI Aprile, Rome, is marked with an E and F (Era Fascista)
and the date (XI, or 1933).  On the rounded pillars, fasces have been removed.
The building was the setting for Ettore Scola's 1977 film with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroanni,
 "Una Giornata Particolare" (A Special Day).

Chipped off fasces, Rome school, San Giovanni area

Three chipped away fasces, dating to 1934.  Near Castel S. Angelo, Rome
Also note upper left "A-XII" (year 12, 1934) and what looks like a chiseled off  "EF"
 (Era Fascista)  on the upper right.

That mix of perspectives can be revisited by noting how 20th-century Romans have dealt with the fasces in their midst.  Some have been chiseled off public and private buildings.  Others remain, reminders of Italy's 20th-century fascination with its Roman origins, and of the country's 20-year flirtation with Fascism.

For Americans who grew up with the fasces on the back of the Mercury dime, these Rome

remnants of Italy's disagreeable past might offer a lesson, or lessons, on our own past: was American use of fasces different from the Italian Fascist use--that is, more innocent, more positive, essentially benign?  Or was there more to the Mercury dime (1916-1945, roughly corresponding to the Fascist era, and featuring the axe), and to the fasces in the US House of Representatives? Something unsettling?

Bill

In Piazza Augusto Imperatore (in RST's Top 40).  Perhaps Rome's best known fasces.

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.