Monday, February 12, 2018

NEIGHBORHOOD UNRRA-CASAS St. BASIL

1955 Mario Fiorentino (1918/82)
Area of 8.5 hectares (21 acres) comprising of 180 apartments, each with a vegetable garden of about 150/200 m² (1,600/2,100 square feet), given to about 900 war refugees
The type of housing show an interesting Scandinavian influence
“The building types include row houses, simplex and duplex, which extend each one in an open space of their own. The reference to rural architecture is noticeable in both the construction technique, the adoption of a continuous masonry of the traditional type, and in the morphological details” (Giorgio Muratore)
It was built with funds from the United Nations intended to help the populations in distress for the war
UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) was an organization of the United Nations, based in Washington, established in 1943 to assist economically and civilly countries left badly damaged by World War II. It was discontinued in 1947. The funds came from countries that had not experienced devastation during the war
The new neighborhood replaced a rickety township built in the thirties of the twentieth century to accommodate families evicted from the city center during the fascist demolitions
It had been built with the so-called carpelite, a mixture of wood and lime
The houses of the village were so pretty much just sturdy huts and were known as Case Sette Lire (seven liras houses) or Casette Peter (Peter's small houses) from the name of the designer
“It may seem strange a decision to build in a city like Rome a neighborhood of such limited size (180 homes), but given the paucity of funding, it was decided anyway to build a small project that would somehow have an exemplary character. (...) Even today, in the vast outskirts of Rome, the 'Village St. Basil' succeeds in maintaining its particular character, a bit unreal, of a suburban residential area that the city's development hasn't virtually affected” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)
1963 by Augusto Baccin (1914/98)
In the building of the parish there is an embedded ancient medieval tower

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