Keele Research Repository

This article traces the extraordinary architectural production of the Roman branch of the Istituto Case Popolari (Institute of Public Housing, ICP) during the period between 1925 and 1930. This was the most prolific and creative period in the history of the Institute, delivering a rich portfolio of distinctive public housing projects in and around Rome with modest means and against the backdrop of a severe housing crisis. It was also the period when a single architect, Innocenzo Sabbatini, left his creative mark on the most significant of the Institute's executed projects. Under Sabbatini's creative lead, the ICP sought to advance a distinctive, coherent vision for public housing while also producing a singular architectural language that was both modern and unmistakably ‘situated’ in the traditions and the ambience of Rome. I examine the three arguably most innovative ICP projects of this period bearing Sabbatini's signature: the Albergo Rosso in Garbatella; the so-called Casa del Sole in Tiburtino; and the unrealized Trionfale Nuovo project. Through these three projects, I seek to trace a fascinatingly singular Roman road to architectural modernism that pre-dated the ‘heroic’ phase of razionalismo in Rome during the early 1930s but has been largely redacted from the narratives of modernist architecture.