Ripensare la borgata romana: il caso del Quarticciolo

Among the examples of the Roman suburbs best known as “borgate”, built between 1924 and 1937, the case study of Quarticciolo stands out clearly for the hierarchical design of the plan and for the architectural quality of the whole intervention. In spite of the hostile attitude of critics, some of these projects still maintain distinctive features considered by the population as identity-creating representations. Quarticciolo was designed between 1939-1940 and it was the last realization of the construction program in Roman suburbs promoted by the Italian government. The Ifacp office was coordinated by Roberto Nicolini, author of the workers' village in Torre Gaia and of the suburb of Trullo, the latter designed with Giuseppe Nicolosi. The first phase of construction was completed between 1941-1943 but the construction site went on during the second world war. On July 1943 it was interrupted by the bombing of Rome when many unfinished houses were occupied by homeless and displaced persons coming from other suburbs in the east part of the eternal city. The studying case analyzed in this paper is an urban settlement completely integrated with the topography of the area. Thanks to the hierarchy of its parts Quarticciolo is able to “resist” to all the changes of the Roman outskirt. The urban model proposed in the Quarticciolo can stimulate a positive reflection: in fact, this intervention of council housing is able to produce the idea of “organism”, different from any utopia of several towns built during the fascist regime or from  any “self-referential” context, like the districts built after the world war.