THE NEW ECO-COMPACT GARDEN CITY AT CORVIALE, AVOE-CIVICARCH 2008
The Deputy Mayor for Housing at the Lazio Regional Administration, Teodoro Buontempo, stated recently that he has a dream: Demolishing Corviale.
It would be an incredible opportunity to give Italian Slab-Urbia a chance to re-generation. After all the failures on 20th century town-planning, finally it seems that a new era of sustainable urbanism can begin.
Corviale is a 1km long "Unité d'Habitation" built in the 1970s as example of brutalist architecture applied to social housing.
It accomodates some 6,000 inhabitants.
The demolition of this clear mistake in architecture, town-planning, and urban policy can lead the way to a new season in Italian architecture: URBAN RENAISSANCE to transform Slab-Urbia into true mixed-use eco-compact towns, neighborhoods and villages.
Corviale is possibly the most famous example of brutalist architecture in Italy, but almost all Italian cities have been vandalised during the 1970s by similar monsters: LAVATRICI at Genova, GALLARATESE at Milan, PILASTRO at Bologna, LAURENTINI Q 38 at Rome, VELE at Naples, ZEN at Palermo.
The Masterplan to transform Corviale into an Eco-Compact Garden City has been developed by AVOE at the International Workshop organised in 2008 at the University of Ferrara on: COMPACT CITIES vs SUBURBAN SKYSCRAPERS.
It calls for a new mixed-use Garden City on 14 ha accomodating some 12,500 inhabitants in 3-4 storey maximum buildings.
Hopefully it will help the re-generation of both Corviale and the Italian Slab- and Sub- Urbia.
Hopefully, it will serve as a tool for citizens to make choices on the urban environment to live in.
THE SITE OF CORVIALE IN 2010 WITH THE 1KM LONG SOCIAL HOUSING SLAB
