Garbatella
The utopia of a garden city
The neighborhood, one of the two garden cities of Rome, was designed with low-density buildings surrounded by greenery to give a decent and healthy accommodation to the working class.
History
On the hill of San Paolo, close to the Tiber, the construction of a new residential district for craftsmen and workers was planned in the first post-war period. The nearby Ostiense area in fact hosted many industrial activities related to maritime and rail transport, of which many traces still remain. Garbatella retains its old productive vocation in the names of its streets dedicated to shipowners, engineers, navigators and explorers.
The neighborhood, one of the two garden cities of Rome, was designed with low-density buildings surrounded by greenery to give a decent and healthy accommodation to the working class. The project covers 26 hectares and has been developed in parts, with subsequent construction plans managed by the technical office of the Istituto Case Popolari. The affordability to which the construction of the buildings was based stimulated the designers to search for shapes and details in order never to renounce the overall quality. Style and types of roman countryside’s rural architecture are re-proposed throughout the neighborhood along with the forms of the Roman Baroque.
L’itinerario
The itinerary to discover the neighborhood starts from the GARBATELLA stop of the underground line B.
Once out of the subway, take via G. Pullino and, when you arrive in piazza P. Pantera, continue on via A. Guglielmotti. You will find yourself in piazza Benedetto Brin where our itinerary begins. The large building overlooking the square, designed in 1921 by Eng. Sabbatini, is part of the first expansion core of the neighborhood and symbolically presents at its center the entrance arch to the garden city of the Garbatella. The use of poor materials such as tuff, exposed bricks and plaster is expertly dosed to enhance niches, corbels, loggias and altars. The expedient of the covered passage serves to mark the detachment from the city made up of large intensive blocks and to allow us to enter a completely different spatial dimension.
Go through the covered entrance and you will have the impression of being in a small rural village far from the city.
After passing the entrance, at the first crossroads turn right in via della Garbatella and immediately afterwards left in via delle Sette Chiese. This road of late imperial origin that connected via Ostiense with via Appia became of great importance with the spread of Christianity. In fact, some of the catacombs of the early Christian period insist on this direction, those of Commodilla, Domitilla and S. Callisto, and the two basilicas of S.Paolo fuori le Mura and San Sebastiano.
As soon as you enter via delle Sette Chiese, on the left you notice a residential complex from 1928 by arch. A. Vicario. The front of the building suddenly withdraws, leaving you at the center of a monumental hemicycle space. In the center a forepart on a high base marked by a giant order of pilasters supports a broken tympanum crowned with decorative vessels.
Turn left and proceed along via E. Cravero until you reach piazza Bartolomeo Romano.
Once you arrive in Piazza Bartolomeo Romano, you are in one of the identity places in the neighborhood. In 1927 arch. I. Sabbatini designed two multifunctional buildings that present public services for the neighborhood on the ground floor and high-rise residences.
The most spectacular of the two buildings is certainly the one with a semicircular facade which houses the Palladium theater hall in the lower volume. With a game of perspective, the architect withdraws the facade of the residences, making it a backdrop surmounted by a temple-shaped attic floor.
The second multifunctional building is located on the other corner of the square and is also characterized by a reference to elements of Roman imperial architecture. The building with an articulated facade is surmounted by a large Roman thermal window. This building housed the public toilets on the ground floor and basement, which were in use until the 1960s.
Run alongside the former public baths, continue on via E. Ferrati and turn right on via G. Obizzo. In this part of the neighborhood more than in others you can perceive the organization of the lives of the inhabitants around semi-public green spaces pertaining to each block. Continue along the road and, beyond the staircase, you are in piazza E. Masdea. From here, take Via C. Randaccio on the left and continue the walk observing the picturesque details spread along the entire route. Continue until the intersection with via D. Chiodo, turn right and at the end of the road take via G.B. Magnaghi on the right.
Once in piazza N. Longobardi you can observe the “Scoletta”, the neighborhood kindergarten, designed by Eng. I. Sabbatini in 1927. The complex is a refurbishment of an old 16th century country house, of which the central pavilion remains, to which Eng. Sabbatini added two lateral wings to create an internal courtyard closed on three sides. The facade of the ancient building has a three-span portico with Tuscan columns on the ground floor and a loggia supported by Ionic columns on the first floor. The result of the integration between the twentieth-century building and the Renaissance building is perfectly harmonious.
Continue along via G.B. Magnaghi, the road is interrupted by a brick arched portico; passing under it we find ourselves in Piazza D. Sauli, another of the symbolic places of the neighborhood.
The monumental-looking building that you find in front of you is a school designed in 1931 by arch. A. Brunetta. The building consists of two C-shaped wings of four floors each and a two-storey connecting body crowned by a tower with metal dome. The building is of great importance from an urban point of view because it strongly connotes a central place in the Garbatella. The breakdown of the architectural volumes and the geometric decoration is an evidence of the Decò taste of those years.
On the left of the square you will find the second monumental building, visible with its dome from almost every corner of the neighborhood, the church of S. Francesco Saverio, also designed in 1931 by the arch. A. Calza Bini. The parish building has a facade with two columns, which frame the main entrance, and a system of pillars and travertine decorations that stand out on the brick structure. The façade is crowned by a simple travertine tympanum supported by a brick arch inside of wich a large window gives light to the central nave. The interior, with a Latin cross shape, consists of three naves. The highest central one is covered with a barrel vault. The interior is very bright thanks to the high windows of the tambour and the smaller ones of the side naves.
Walk along the right side of the church and turn right into via C. Borri. On your left you will find one of the last built blocks of the neighborhood but perhaps one of the most particular. This lot, number 24, was created as an example of a garden-city and presented at the XII International Congress of Housing and Town Plans, held in Rome in 1929. The general plan of the lot, triangular in shape, is designed to house detached houses and terraced houses. Four months after the presentation of the project, the block was completely built. Being an experimental project, the appearance of the buildings is marked by a more sober modernity.
The most particular building of the entire block is located at the intersection of via C. Borri and via delle Sette Chiese and was designed by arch. M. De Renzi. This small cubic residence hides a design wisdom that merge the rules of classic proportions with a more modern aspect. The main façade on via delle Sette Chiese appears very compact in shape. However, it is pierced in the center by a deep loggia with two high columns with a semicircular balcony. The facade is surmounted by a simple triangular tympanum, also pierced in the center by an arched window. The end result is of composed elegance.
Continuing on via delle Sette Chiese, you arrive in piazza S. Eurosia, which takes its name from the first parish in the neighborhood, a small country church built in 1818 by Mons. N. M. Nicolai. The facade of the church, with entrance on via delle Sette Chiese, has an arched portico of great simplicity, topped by a triangular tympanum which bears the inscription of dedication and foundation of the temple.
On the square you can see a building complex with an arched entrance that connects two symmetrical buildings. The ground floor, which houses shops, follows the course of the road. The residences of the three upper floors instead move backwards creating two blind and concave wings that emphasizes the entrance.
Cross the arch and walk along via A. Rubino, the main axis of this settlement, which was built to give healthy housing to the slums dwellers expropriated by the great works of the historic center of Rome.
Continuing to walk along via A. Rubino, where you find rather modest and anonymous buildings, you get to the focal point of this settlement: Piazza G. Sapeto. As happens throughout the neighborhood, the modeling of public spaces follows a Baroque setting that tends to constantly amaze the observer. The square is in fact delimited on the front by two monumental buildings on whose corners there are two arches to enter the blocks; it becomes then a point of arrival but also a place of departure, letting the observer look through the arches.
Cross the square and take the long central staircase that will take you out of the settlement where a final curiosity awaits us, before heading to the last place of our itinerary.
At the end of the staircase on the right corner we can see a large decorative terracotta jar, supported by a high ashlar base in stone. At the bottom of the pillar you can see Fontana Carlotta, a fountain with the bas-relief of a female face throws the jet of water in the basin below. According to legend, the figure would be the landlady Carlotta, so kind to the travelers of the Roman countryside that she was called “polite” from which, by extension, the name of the neighborhood: “La Garbatella”.
Leave the Carlotta Fountain behind you and turn right onto via R. de Nobili and, once you arrive in piazza G. Bonomelli, take viale G. Massaia proceeding towards circonvallazione Ostiense.
In this portion of the neighborhood, the last to be built in chronological order, suburban hotels were built, large buildings for temporary housing for slums dwellers expropriated by the great works of the historic center of Rome. The shape of the buildings does not follow the perimeter of the blocks but develops on the bisectors, creating a dynamic urban space in which each internal room is oriented according to the best sun exposure and with correct ventilation. All the hotels were then transformed into permanent houses.
The most famous of the suburban hotels is the Albergo Rosso, designed by Eng. I. Sabbatini in 1927 and differs from the others for its red plaster and the clock tower that stands in the center of one of the long sides. On the short sides, the facade of the hotel becomes concave with a convex porch in the lower part that marks one of the entrances to the building. The hotel in its decorative simplicity, expresses a great visual force due to the continuous articulation of the architectural volumes and forms both concave and convex. Inside, the public kindergarten and canteen services were built with the characteristic elliptical dome, which unfortunately was destroyed during the bombings of 1943.
Now return to piazza Michele da Carbonara, take via I. Persico and continue to the end of the road. You will find the entrance to the subway, where our visit to Garbatella ends.
