When Architecture is not enough. A comparison of San Basilio and Corviale

The end of the Second World War revealed the severe housing crisis Italy was about to face, as well as the urgent need for a comprehensive rethink of urban centers. In Rome, still governed by the 1931 General Regulatory Plan, the lack of a suitable urban planning framework to guide the city’s expansion had resulted in neighborhoods and buildings devoid of urban coherence and architectural or constructional quality often the by-products of land speculation by a handful of large landowners. From the outset of Mario Fiorentino’s (1918–1982) career, attention to the city—the “new” city—and to the role of architecture in designing residential neighborhoods for social housing became a central focus. Fiorentino was deeply engaged in debates surrounding the relationship between architecture and urban planning, as well as in policies aimed at curbing Rome’s uncontrolled expansion. Throughout his career, he maintained a strong commitment to the issue of housing, designing numerous residential buildings ranging from individual houses to apartment blocks and entire neighborhoods for social and affordable housing. This essay examines two of Fiorentino’s projects in Rome, which, despite their differing architectural languages and building typologies, share similar design intentions and, paradoxically, similarly unsuccessful outcomes. On one hand, there is the San Basilio UNRRA-Casas neighborhood, designed between 1951 and 1955 with Serena Boselli, located on the far north-eastern outskirts of Rome. Here, the foundational concept was rooted in the “neighborhood unit”, with buildings arranged to create small internal courtyards intended to foster community life. On the other hand, there is the IACP residential complex in Corviale, the iconic kilometere-long building in the south-western quadrant of the city, a symbol of large-scale architecture, designed and built by Fiorentino between 1972 and 1981. Despite the twenty-year gap between the two projects and their differences in urban context and architectural approach, both were conceived to avoid social marginalization and foster community integration. However, while the ghettoization of these spaces is often attributed to their architectural typologies and layouts, this essay aims to examine the two projects in parallel—from the neorealist “small houses” to the megastructure—reflecting on the role of architecture in processes of urban isolation and analyzing the synergies necessary to build a cohesive city. Comparing these two “architectural opposites”, which nonetheless led to similar social outcomes, provides an opportunity to reflect on the insufficiency of architecture alone in addressing the challenges of contemporary urban design.