History by Walking Around: the new tourist destination of Quartiere Giuliano Dalmata

 

As usual with Rome, we find some of the most interesting information - and add to our knowledge of history -  just by walking around. Last year - when we were walking back from our intended destination of the Laurentina 38 housing project (about which Bill wrote in July 2019) we ran across this "monument" (top photo) - with the words "To the fallen, Giuliani Dalmati," placed on a large boulder from the Carso - a rocky region of Italy that was the subject of Italian/Austria-Hungary battles in World War I, and was a focus of competing armies and political interests again in World War II. 

We also saw on a nearby building this plaque, 

which basically reads:

March 1947: The Exodus of Italian Pola: Hospitable Rome welcomes the Istrian, Fiumean [Fiume is now called Rijeka] and Dalmation refugees. President Oscar Sinigaglia [a street in the map below bears his name], with the National Organization of Repatriated Workers and Refugees, gives life to the "Giuliano Dalmation Neighborhood"  The plaque is marked as put up by the National Association of Venezia, Giulia, e Dalmazia (Venezia-Giulia and Dalmatia)

Quite difficult to make sense of this if one is less that fully knowledgeable about Italy's role in World War I, Fascism and World War II, plus some post-World War II history. In giving it a try recently, we ran across an article touting the restoration of the monument at the top of this post, "after years of neglect and degradation" (it didn't look so bad to us in 2019!) only this past October.

And, even more recent, on December 30 of this past year, the "Quartiere Giuliano Dalmata" (map at end of post) was welcomed - with a plaque and Q Code - in the tourist layout of Rome. 

Not exactly readable here, but the plaque relates that the "quartiere" or neighborhood started in 1939 as workers' housing for laborers building Mussolini's E42 expo grounds (now the fully developed EUR zone, which is featured in our books) a few miles further south of Rome. 

When the war brought Mussolini's unfinished international exhibition construction to a halt, the workers abandoned the housing. The Allies occupied the buildings for a while. When they left, in 1947, a nucleus of 12 families - fleeing their homes in Pola, which was ceded to Yugoslavia and is better known as the Istrian Peninsula - were settled here. The dorms were converted to small apartments, and in 1955 another 2,000 people from the ex-Italian Pola region settled here, giving the quarter its name. 

There are still some political joustings and resentments over the "exodus." Apparently (I'm trying to tread lightly here) some of the Italians were settled in the Istrian Peninsula by the Fascist government, which claimed the area and wanted it settled by, and dominated by, Italians.

The boulder monument was put up in 1961, and in 2008 a sculpture (photo below, right) was erected in the nearby Largo Vittime delle Foibe Istriane ("Largo [something like a piazza] Victims of the Istrian Foibe").  Bill commented on the sculpture in a 2011 post here. 

Delving into the foibe (deep sink holes into which victims were thrown, sometimes alive) and their political ramifications is beyond my pay grade at this point - perhaps for a later post.  Because the Day of Remembrance for the victims and those in the exodus that resulted in the neighborhood described here is February 10 - not long ago - we offer a link to an Ansa article describing the reasons for the Day of Remembrance (and a bit of the politics).

Dianne

Gentrification: Rome's new Problem

We're familiar with a variety of Rome social movements, but until the latest trip we had not encountered the latest variant: opposition to gentrification.  It might have been there for years, and we failed to notice--because we generally rent in middle-class neighborhoods (Monteverde, Piazza Bologna, San Giovanni) where residents appreciate the amenities of gentrification: a sleek, modern coffee place, an art gallery, a (dare we say it) wine bar.

Gentrification involves investment in shops and housing.  The irony is that the neighborhoods that most need investment--poorer neighborhoods that today feature a mix of native Italians and immigrants--are precisely those where resistance to gentrification is strongest, judging by what's written on the walls.  These neighborhoods are Quadraro, not far from the center, on both sides of via Tuscolana; Tor Pignattara (just north of Quadraro, off via Casilina), and Pigneto (not far from Porta Maggiore, and between via Prenestina and via Casilina).  Tellingly, all of these neighborhoods have a strong street art scene.  We also found anti-gentrification sentiment at Laurentina 38, a massive public housing on the city's outskirts.

We first encountered hostility to gentrification--and hostility to one of the symbols of gentrification-- on a walk from Pigneto, where we were living, to Tor Pignattara.  We had just seen for the first time Etam Cru's "Coffee Break," 2014, the tallest piece of wall art in the city, located between via del Pigneto and via Ludovico Pavoni.

Nearby, another large piece attracted our attention.

But the words below it were of more importance, for they served as our introduction to the problem: "muralismo = gentrification," followed by the sign of an anarchist/feminist group.

The word "murales" (murals), from the Spanish, is now commonly used in Rome to refer to wall art; the English word "gentrification" is the word most often used by Italians to label the phenomenon.  And the message was clear: some people believe that wall art is a sign of the arrival of gentrification, or anticipation of it.  We don't know that that's true, although the area between Tor Pignattara and Pigneto might seem an ideal setting for the young, rising middle class: some large and ordinary apartment buildings, but also many smaller houses, tucked away on quiet side streets, ready to be bought up and redone.

There are no wine bars in Tor Pignattara, though the area has been home to a premier small art gallery, Wunderkammern, for several years.  And we did find one development that deserves the term gentrification.  It's not far from the intersection of via Casilina and via Acqua Bullicante, and next door to a defunct art deco style theater.  There's a sign for "Conti Suites," a sales office for the apartments above.  And a mural designed to appeal to the more-or-less upscale folks who might want to live there:

Pigneto does have a wine bar--indeed, there are at least four of them, including the famous Necci dal 24, where Pasolini hung out 50 years ago--as well as several coffee bars designed to attract the upwardly mobile--so maybe the horse of gentrification is out of the barn.

Even so, some of the locals don't like what's going on. The poster below states "La gentrificazione [an attempt to Italianize the word] distrugge la vita del quartiere" (gentrification destroys the life of the neighborhood).  The illustration is a reference to Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" (1942).  It looks like the self-satisfied life of the gentry, relaxing at the cafe, has been disrupted by a violent demonstration--perhaps against gentrification.  Other interpretations welcome!

Quadraro has a long history of anti-fascism and a shorter, though distinguished one, of street art.  For about a decade, street artists have been welcomed.  They've decorated the sides of elevated via Tuscolana, which splits the town; the ends of a tunnel that runs under the highway; and dozens of walls on side streets.  There are no art galleries that we know of in Quadraro, no wine bar, and--with an exception or two--not much redevelopment.  Below, one of our favorite pieces of Quadraro street art:

For whatever reason, there is growing opposition to gentrification in Quadraro, and particularly to the street art that has given the community its contemporary definition.  The photo at the top of the post, of the side of via Tuscolana at it runs through the community, illustrates the conflict:  On the one hand, a 2011 note celebrates the street art tradition: "art pollinates Quadraro/l'arte feconda Quadraro."  On the other hand, more recent scribbling, on top of some of the original art, has another message: "Il quartiere non e' il vostro museo" (the neighborhood is not your museum).

Not far way, around an entrance to the tunnel, insulting comments about street art ("fanculo la street art"/fuck street art), gentrification ("gentrifica sto cazzo"/gentrify my ass!), and dislike of "hipsters," whom the writer identifies as the agent of gentrification:  "Barbe strappate"/"occhia i rotti"/"ve sfondamo" (plucked beards, smashed eyeglasses, hipsters [beware] we're going to kick your ass).  Nota bene: we got some translation help from a Roman friend, who adds: "The Italian sfondare (=smash), used in Rome, refers to not very pleasant activities, such as 'sfondare di botte' (=beat you to a pulp) or worse, 'sfondare il culo' (=break your ass)."  Thanks, M!

The anti-gentrification statements above are all by one person (which to some extent vitiates their importance as evidence), and are sited just to the left of one of the elaborately decorated tunnel entrances.

And then there's Laurentina 38, the failed housing project, its architecturally significant bridges now populated by immigrant squatters--a complex, and a neighborhood, that could use new money, whether that of hipsters or anyone else.

Bill

Laurentina 38: a Controversial Public Housing Project

Entrance to Laurentina 38, other side of the circle.  

Laurentina 38 (which begins on via Ignazio Silone, south of EUR, not on via Laurentina), is one of 3 major public housing projects constructed in Rome in the 1970s and 1980s.  The others are Vigne Nuove (to the north of the city) and the monumental Corviale, also on Rome's southern end.

Whatever their deficiencies, they were part of a major governmental effort to provide inexpensive, subsidized housing for the poor.  In the United States, at least--and likely Italy, too--such efforts no longer exist.  In the States, whatever low-income housing is built is constructed by private developers, who agree to allocate a certain number of units to "affordable" housing. 

Designed by architect Pietro Barucci, Laurentina 38 was inspired by the larger projects of Le Corbusier as well as the New English towns.  Design work was done in 1972/73 and construction carried out between 1976 and 1984.  The basic idea was to create a "satellite city" on Rome's periphery. Some say the community--which would house some 32,000 residents--was intended to be self-sufficient, though what that might mean in a highly interdependent urban world is not clear.

As originally conceived, Laurentina 38 consisted of "islands" of high-rise housing, the buildings separated from one another but united by a series of walkways (which were never built).  The apartment buildings were arranged along a 4 km ring road (via Ignazio Silone), where cars, trucks, and buses would travel.  Pedestrians could use the sidewalks along the busy ring road, but they were expected to move about on a second level, above the street, under covered walkways.  We found some of those walkways intimidating, others blocked with refuse or foliage.

The buildings on one side of the street were integrated with those on the other side by 11 bridges  (ponti), placed at intervals along the road, designed in the brutalist style of the day and made of reinforced concrete.  The ponti, one level above the road, are the distinguishing architectural feature of the complex.  They were intended to house offices and shops (perhaps that's the note of self-sufficiency that was said to be built into the project). Some think that the offices/shops idea was flawed from the start; others argue that the services were never "installed," though in a capitalist economy it's not clear how shops (say, a hardware store) could be "installed." Apparently market forces were insufficient to populate the ponti.

At any rate, the ponti were empty from the beginning and remained so, creating a void that was filled by hundreds of homeless people--many, apparently, new immigrants--who took over the bridges as squatters, building walls to separate families and living there without bathrooms or, in many cases, windows.  The residents of the bridge below have installed satellite dishes.

The sign below celebrates 28 years of "occupation" of ponte #6.

According to the most common narrative, failure of the bridge idea, and other peculiarities of construction of the high-rises (no interior hallways, empty spaces on the second level intended for leisure pursuits but never used, the lack of connections between the buildings) led to the degradation of the complex and to high levels of crime and drug use.  Others blame the prominence of the road (below).

An example of the empty spaces on the second level:

One of the 2nd level walkways:

Probably because of the arrest and incarceration of some of the project's residents, there is opposition within the complex to the idea of prison, and in particular Rome's Rebibbia prison.  "We hate the prison," reads the sign below. And there's information about a 3 day event in June at the 6th bridge, with concerts, food--and tattooing.

We also found opposition to "gentrification" (Italians use the English word, apparently because they don't have their own).  L38!

Three of the ponti--#s 9, 10, and 11--were demolished in 2006.




A small group of young Americans interested in architecture visited Laurentina 38 for two days in 2009.  They were not welcomed by the residents.  "We were shouted at, cursed at, told to back home, teased, harassed."  When we visited in May 2019, we experienced no such hostility--despite poking around a good bit.  We did notice the trash and more than one scooter carcass.  But that's just Rome.


We enjoy seeing public housing projects and are interested in brutalist architecture.  But our visit to Laurentina 38 came about because we had heard that there was new and important art on its walls.  We found only one piece--and that may be all there is--by street artist Ericailcane (Erica il cane, Erica the dog).  It's near the 5th ponte, on the right.  Looks like the theme is greed.

Another positive sign: an association of volunteers ("Gocce di speranza" means "drops of hope"):

Laurentina 38 is about a half mile from the Laurentina Metro stop on the B line.  The project is located between via Cristoforo Colombo on the west, and via Laurentina on the east.

Bill