Session B.2 - Living in the houses of the National Authorities in 20th Century Italy
coordinators: Gaia Caramellino (Politecnico di Torino); Alice Sotgia (La Sapienza Università di Roma)

Housing built by national authorities in 20th century Italy have often been addressed by general descriptions and debates that mainly focused on the construction processes, on the assignation policies and, most recently, on the phenomenon of the “cartolarizzazione”. However, these houses still represent a crucial as well as quite ignored aspect of the canonic narrative of 20th century cities. In our opinion, this residential stock could provide an exceptional laboratory of observation to rethink the dynamics of growth and transformation of Italian cities, as well as to discuss a number of shared visions.
The session aims at considering the effective role played by a number of Italian public and parastatal authorities - and by the housing policies and programs they advocated - in the shaping of urban residential buildings, developments and neighborhoods to be assigned to their employees or to be rented, with the intent to observe housing models, programs and policies codified by the National authorities, along with the housing practices and cultures shaped by the “users” (inhabitants).
On the one hand, the observation over a long period will allow the exploration of the changes and transformations that affected residential imageries and models originally shaped by the public promoters (that often loosed their original aims and intents along the time); on the other, this investigation allows a deeper understanding of the encounter among housing cultures and official models and imageries, highlighting how their integration, contamination or rejection influenced the shaping of alternative solutions. The session aims at bonding together studies and researches that, through different disciplinary perspectives, address an institutional literature (i.e. administrative records), paying also a particular attention to architectural, planning and social models produced, in relation to the residential practices.

Deadline 16 febbraio 2013

http://www.storiaurbana.org/index.php/it/congressi/catania-2013/call-for-paper/9-congressi/95-call-for-paper-b2

Gaia Caramellino (gaia.caramellino@polito.it)
Alice Sotgia (alice.sotgia@uniroma1.it)