Corviale is one of the Instituto Autonomo per le Case Populari-sponsored housing projects built on the outskirts of Rome in the 1970’s as part of the 1964 regional plan to alleviate crowding in the older central city. It was conceived as an independent community for about 8000 people including, in addition to housing, other community facilities such as schools, shopping, recreation facilities and even a church. Built on rolling farmland southwest of Rome along Via Portuense, the route of the ancient road which ran on the right bank of the Tiber to the Roman port of Portus Traiani, Corviale is the 1970’s manifestation of linear building ideas of the 1960’s, the latest in a modernist legacy of linear cities and mega-buildings. An eleven-story high narrow slab of apartments nearly a kilometer in length, dominates this new lineal city, that steps along the crest of a hill. This huge segmented, inhabited wall contains about 1000 apartments and serves as a north-south datum that organizes the rest the other smaller buildings and open spaces of the complex. video
