L'ex zuccherificio di Latina. Una memoria da custodire, un futuro da recuperare

The encounter between the sugar industry and the territory of the Agro Pontino was not a coincidence: the comprehensive land reclamation and the favorable environmental conditions made it possible to cultivate sugar beet—a strategic crop for profitability and agricultural development within the new land ownership structures. In this context, the construction of the Littoria (now Latina) sugar factory began in 1935, one of the first industrial establishments in the newly created province. Built in just ten months and strategically located between the railway—with the new Littoria station—and the historic Via Appia, the plant became the center of a “total factory”: around it arose workers’ housing, services, and social spaces for leisure activities, shaping a genuine productive and communal settlement. The history of the Pontine factory came to an end in 1993 with its final closure, leaving behind an area now marked by decay and abandonment. This paper aims to retrace the history of the sugar factory in light of the most recent transformations affecting the site, with the goal of rediscovering its architectural, productive, and social values—restoring meaning and visibility to an industrial heritage long forgotten yet still capable of narrating the landscape of industry and labor in the twentieth century.