On th outskirts of Rome inside the Ring Road, on a hill a sits a grey
horizontal monoblock, in re-inforced cement, a straight interrupted row about a kilometre long, where an indefinite number of people live. One large single block, developed horizzontally which one glance can hardly embrace. If from a distance it is a single oblong kind of barrier, from close up the long horizontal line is broken into many single bands of windows and ribbons in cement below windows. These create a motif which is simple and suffocating while the lines extend undisturbed into infinity and dissolve into nothingness. If one turns in the other direction, one sees the same thing, the same rigid lines directed towards a distant and uncertain point. The horizontal monotony is broken by the works of the artist Nicola Carrino on the prefaricated panels of the underwindows with diaginal lines. Even they, however, intended as a theme that regularly repeats itself, do not break the uniformity of the prospect,but re-inforce it.
The area in which the Corviale rose was intended, according to Legge 167 as construction of an economic an popular kind.. The planning was entrusted to a group of 23 planners co-ordinated by Architect Mario Fiorentino. Work began 12 May 1975 and the first houses were handed over by October 1982. The idea of Corviale took concrete form following the socio-architectonic theories of Le Corbusier in an attempt to stem expansion in all directions on the outskirts of Rome. The idea was also to rationalise the uncontrolled building of those years, and to experiment an alternative way of living far from the city centre. This vision, revolutionary in theory, we may say, has in practice failed completely. Sufficient to think of the Unité d'Habitation di Marseilles, certainly more controlled in its dimensions and concluded from a planning point of view, but far rdifferent from the initial idea. And today a construction museum which bears witness to the ideas of that period without offering homes to those in need.
The planning matrix of Corviale envisaged two parallel buildings, 980 metres in length and 9 floors high, with more than two levels of cellars and a basement for garages. The two blocks, divided into five lots and containing 1202 appartments, were connected on the inside by galleries, courtyards and common spaces. Flanking this long barrier, for the whole length of the building, stood another row of buildings of two or three storeys, to accommodate old couples and the disabled.
But the most significant aspect of the project was the ample allocation of space for communal purposes: four open air theatres in the neighbouring park, circumscription offices, a library, schools, health services, a market, a meeting room with five hundred seats, a room for meetings of tenants, and communal activities in each of the five lots, while the fourth floor was completely allocated to handicraft activities and shops. This, then, was an innovatory project, offering another way of city life. Such a project, however, was not completed entirely and when the first dwellings were handed over the services and common spaces were not completed. This was what caused the problems that intensified in the Corvale district. But the problem was less the dimensions of the building than the bad management. In fact, in the wake of the hand over of the first houses of the project not fully completed, many people in need occupied some dwellings. Also, due to the slowness of official bodies,, the fourth floor, which was to house shops but remained for years not used, was utilized for the illegal construction of appartments there where intended for communal services. Over the years Corviale has thus become a symbol of deterioration of the outskirts of Rome. So much that, not only Italian architects, but also American and Chinese town planning experts have put forward plans for improving the living conditions within this 800,000 cubic metres of re-inforced concrete.
When you arrive on the fourth floor, originally intended for services, you plummet into in a surrealistic atmosphere, where illegal building is apparent in all its crudity. Habitations are behind compared with the row outside the building and the windows of the buildings filter the light through metal grills on all the surface of the outside of the building; the drill holes of the walls are left visible; iron gates cover the space in front; bolts on the doors make people approaching diffident to enter. Here the sensation of extraneity doubles, a very long building, linear, planned to give order to the outskirts of the city, which is crowded within, englobed, another quarter completely illegally built up which follows the stylistic "rules" of illegal constructions.
If, then, on the one hand, bad management has caused the problems, on the other there were undeniable errors in the project itself, as for example the places of rest, positioned near stairways, are dark, without either light or openings to the outside, with cold cement seats, difficult for the tenants to use; or a whole series of spaces not thought out and therefore unusable.
In general, all the places of rest designed inside the building have square benches in cement positioned in improbable places and anything but relaxing. It has been, rather, the residents who have created their own spaces, as alternatives to those planned. The long corridors and internal balconies with two stakes, where the doors of residents face each other, were immediately modified and personalised. On the bare parapets of the, balconies, often just ten centimeters high and above the standard, vases of flowers of every size have been placed, creating a sensation of instability which adds to the claustrophobia one has, seeing plants higher up in the space between the floor and and ceiling. On the other side facing the parapets what is seen is the image of a "funnel" of grey cement nine floors high which at the top has a spiral of sky and at the bottom a layer of rubbish; it is, then, understandable that there was the wish to create , even in the little space available, a green barrier of protection. Some stretches of balconie then, have been fenced in and made private: some have put an iron grate, some wooden fences, some have closed in the space completely opposite the house with veranda in alluminium and glass. Others, simply, leave seats or armchairs so as to extend the confines of their house beyond the entrance door.
In an undifferentiated and anonymous context like this, over eight kilometres of corridors of Corviale, this appropriation of the interior, even if reflects conflict symbolising the differences between inhabitants, is a fundamental affirmation of identity. But also, from a more practical point of view, it serves as maintenance so people can recognize their own front door. No personnel, in fact, are employed to clean the stairs, so everyone cleans his own landing or the area he has managed to acquire. There is no question, however, of one tenant intending to steal space from others, because solidarity between persons is well developed. Rather, it underlines the commitment of each to improve the place in which he lives and to combat deterioration.
