The
district was built in the fifty years 1870/1920, although most of the buildings
for the residents were built after 1905
The area
had been assigned for centuries to public use and it was known as PRATI DEL
POPOLO ROMANO (meadows of the Roman people) destination for picnics
especially on Easter Monday or Sundays in October, the so-called Ottobrate
The
district was listed in the city plan of 1873 by Pietro
Camporese the Younger (1792/1873) and took the Rione (ward)
attribute in 1921
About 8,400
people live here
1908/10
CASE ICP (public housing homes) between Via Bodoni, Via Manuzio and Lungotevere
Testaccio by Giulio Magni (1859/1930), grandson
of Giuseppe Valadier
“His
four-story residential blocks are reinvented in proportions and relative
positions in the blocks and compared to the internal voids (courtyards), no
more extra spaces of the constructions, but spaces for qualified social life
and playgrounds for children and teenagers. The backing up of the peripheral
blocks and their adjustments in size re-establish a new visual relationship
between these courtyards and the streets outside (visual continuity) and a new
system of social relations. It was also special the attention to detail and
surfaces so that they get a visual recognition and confer uniqueness whole
blocks” (Luigi Secondo Gioggi)
1914/17
THREE BLOCKS OF CASE ICP (public housing homes) between Piazza S. Maria
Liberatrice and Lungotevere Testaccio by Quadrio Pirani
(1878/1970) who designed them with Giovanni Bellucci
“The
attention to detail, the particular decorations and the use of particular
materials (brick and Roman plaster with travertine inserts) allow us to
recognize and appreciate the architecture of Pirani. Justly Pirani can be
considered now as a predecessor of Mario Ridolfi for the appreciation of a
building as a product of artistic craftsmanship and as for his effective use of
materials” (Luigi Secondo Gioggi)
1930 BLOCK
ON PIAZZA S. MARIA LIBERATRICE by Camillo Palmerini
(1893/1967) near the three blocks by Quadrio Pirani
“He tries to
overcome linguistically the recurring motifs of 'Roman Barocchetto' (small
Baroque) or the mediaeval references common to many designers by simplifying
the elements of the façades in decorative function. Studied in Testaccio, in
particular, intensive block to block with closed courtyard without setbacks
where the interiors are enhanced as part common to green homes and services for
the same” (Luigi Secondo Gioggi)
1918/19
CATTANEO PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL on Lungotevere Testaccio by the engineer Carlo Mazza
It used to
train mechanics and electricians for the automotive industry. It was a model
structure in Italy for the production of subsequent vocational schools for
industry and crafts
1926 NOVEMBER 4th ELEMENTARY SCHOOL in Via Alessandro Volta 43 by Augusto Antonelli (1880/1960)
“Formally,
the structure has a certain majesty and by the author reveals the knowledge of
the great works of architecture and eclectic public of the time” (Luigi Secondo
Gioggi)
1921 RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX IN PIAZZA
DELL'EMPORIO, Via Ferdinando di Savoia and Via Andrea Cecchi by Carlo Broggi (1881/1968)
“It
represented one of the first examples, later widely followed in the buildings
of Rome, of an almost public house, created for a variety of cooperative
apartments that would have anyway a character of decent architecture, referring
to the examples of seventeenth-century Roman Baroque, and that would come out
of the monotonous flat uniformity which had almost completely characterized
until then, this kind of developments, and that had created, for example, the
disaster architecture of the new district of Prati. In this building I was
especially interested in the study of the upper parts and of the roof because I
believe that, in a city such as Rome, with steep gradients and visual
overlapping, it is a huge mistake to completely forget about this kind of the
architecture that had so much influence on the effect of the whole landscape of
the city” (Carlo Broggi)
1929/31 TWO
BUILDINGS IN VIA MARMORATA 139 and 149 by the great Innocenzo
Sabbatini (1891/1984)
The project
involved two other buildings that should have faced Piazza S. Maria Liberatrice
but that were never executed
“It
aims to reinterpret the city and residential apartment blocks, to rediscover an
image of Rome in the new constructions, congruent with the past and a modern
interpretation nevertheless. Sabbatini's houses are unmistakably 'Roman'
because derived from the idea of global architecture of the city, because the
knowledge of the past is taken over by the imagination of the architectural
present without denying origins, culture, language” (Luigi Secondo Gioggi)
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