d o  c o _ m o m o _ International working party for

documentation and conservation

Minimum Documentation Fiche 2003 of buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the

modern movement

composed by national/regional working party of:

Docomomo Italia

0.1 Picture of building/site

depicted item: General view of the neighbourhood

source: Projects Archive of Iuav University in Venice, photo by Antonio Garbasso
date: 1982
1.
Identity of building/group of buildings/urban scheme/landscape/garden

1.1 current name of building Matteotti Neighbourhood

1.2 variant or former name Villaggio Matteotti
1.3 number & name of street Via Irma Bandiera 16
1.4 Town Terni
1.5 Province/state Terni/Umbria
1.6 zip code 05100
1.7 Country Italy
1.8 national grid reference latitude 42.547351, longitude 12.659187
1.9 classification/typology RES (Residential)
1.10 protection status & date

2
History of building
2.1 original brief/purpose Housing for workers of the Società Terni Acciaierie
2.2 dates: commission/completion 1969-1975
2.3 Architectural and other designers Giancarlo De Carlo; Collaborators: Fausto Colombo,
Valeria Fossati Bellani
Structural Engineer: Vittorio Korach

2.4 others associated with building Sociologist: Domenico De Masi Curator of the
Exhibition of International Projects: Cesare De Seta
2.5 significant alterations with dates
2.6 current use Housing and services
2.7 current condition quite good condition, thanks to the maintenance of the
common parts made by inhabitants

3
Description
3.1 General description
Terni’s Villaggio Matteotti is a social housing estate commissioned in the early 1970s by the
Società Terni for workers in its steel mills and funded by the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC) administered by GESCAL.
Designed by the architect Giancarlo De Carlo, it is one of the first examples of participative
planning in Italy: the program is the results of the active participation of local residents during
the various phases of planning and design.
De Carlo identified and proposed a general grid that included a series of overlapping and
excavated plates hosting the residential units and a hierarchical system of paths and services
closely linked to the residences.
Together with his collaborators, architects and sociologist Domenico De Masi, met with local
residents to gain a sense of their effective needs and direct interests. The outcome of these
interviews, meetings and exhibitions of projects was a project that offered future homeowners
a rich catalogue of possible solutions (45 alternative typologies).

3.2 Construction
The new village, designed with a total of 840 units on 20 hectares, was interrupted after the
completion of the first phase of only 250 apartments. The built area consists of four large serial
buildings, separated by circulation spaces and surrounded by landscaped areas and gardens,
and a fifth building, four storeys in height and diversely organised. The apartments are situated
in a vast and articulated system of linear residential blocks with integrated services
(kindergarten, meeting spaces, library, cinema-theatre, walk-in clinic, sports facilities and
commercial spaces). Circulation spaces and connections between private spaces and public
services are clearly separated: vehicular roads are reduced to a minimum and pedestrian
traffic occurs partially above grade. Each apartment has its own covered garage and two
bathrooms, as well as a large terrace or roof-garden or vegetable garden, as per the requests
received during the preparatory meetings with future residents.

3.3 Context
The initial project for the new Villaggio Matteotti included the progressive substitution of
existing housing in the workers’ village with a series of bar buildings, without making significant
modifications to the road network and rendering connections with the city centre more fluid.
More important than relations with its immediate surroundings, the village was to have
established connections with the city of Terni, based on the desire to integrate the old semi-
rural village with urban life by redefining road connections and increasing density to provide the
neighbourhood with a more urban character. The fact that the entire project was never
completed and that the first phase involved only the southernmost portion (the project was
begun in the area with the most dilapidated original buildings, constructed immediately after
the War) isolated the project from the rest of the city. The new Villaggio Matteotti was thus
forced to confront a context that had not been contemplated during its original design: the
village it was to have substituted.
Today the Villaggio Matteotti remains formally alienated from its surroundings: it stands out in
the neighbouring area for its typology of construction and density of inhabitation. The fact that
the road network and neighbourhood facilities were never completed – entrusted with the role
of integrating the project within the city – has rendered the Villaggio Matteotti to a certain
degree self-referential.

4
Evaluation
4.1 Technical
The modernity of the new Villaggio Matteotti with respect to the old village is manifest also in
the selection of materials and building techniques. The use of exposed reinforced concrete for
the load bearing piers and walls (including the raised walkways, stairwells, balustrades and
ramps) and the wood frame strip windows evidently link its design to the language of the
Modern Movement.
The considerable added value of the project can be found in the attention to the design of
public spaces: common areas are organised by a structural hierarchy of semi-private, semi-
public and public spaces. Each stairwell serves six units, two per floor, and constitutes a point
of connection between pedestrian paths at grade and those raised above it: large stair landings
on the lower floors and tall, offset stair ramps in reinforced concrete ensure that natural light
reaches the lower levels. The landings are designed to allow for spaces of pause without
interrupting passage. The neighbourhood’s residents use these spaces as an extension of the
domestic environment, demonstrating a strong sense of proprietorship of the spaces
immediately outside their front doors: they are “furnished” with benches and seating and
embellished by vases and flower boxes, creating ideal spaces for siting outside, chatting with
neighbours and hanging out the washing.

4.2 Social
The Villaggio Matteotti is an example of the “tentative architecture” theorized by De Carlo, and
intended as the progressive approach to a definitive architectural solution through the
alternation of moments of pedagogy, listening (meetings with users) and architectural response
to specific requests. De Carlo’s method for Terni, in collaboration with the sociologist De Masi,
sought a balanced and scientifically supported position between the two extremes of architects
who impose their designs on the one hand, and the self-determination of users on the other.
Using the general grid proposed by De Carlo, the variation of typologies and the frequency of
the individual units were established by the user. The interpretation of the built environment by
workers’ families is not evidenced in linguistic elements, tied to the architect’s expressive
language, but in the motivations behind the formal articulation of the organisation of space.
The three-dimensional grid defined by De Carlo served as a reference, an open system within
which to insert the inhabitants’ requests (garden terraces, the independence of the units, the
variety of internal layouts), whose old habits were modified through this process. This occurred
without constricting the architect’s creative abilities that, on the other hand, were in reality
reinforced.

4.3 Cultural & Aesthetic

The architecture of the Villaggio Matteotti represents a continuation of De Carlo’s way of
intending modern architecture not as a style but as a way of reasoning, of designing and
solving problems. Particular characteristics of the Villaggio Matteotti contain the fundamental
elements of a vision of dwelling clearly derived from the contents of the architectural discussion
and critique of the Modern Movement, conducted by De Carlo together with Team X: the
attention to the site, the re-evaluation of the individual in society and the search for
intermediate levels of belonging between the public and the private, the integration between
the dwelling unit, facilities and services to be opposed to the tendency to the functional
impoverishment of buildings and the notion of the city as a collection of complex fabrics in
which public paths and collective facilities serve as connections and hinges and exalt the
values of spatial and functional integration.
Manfredo Tafuri listed the Villaggio Matteotti among the four examples of residential projects of
international interest produced by Italian architecture during the 1970s.

4.4 Historical
The Matteotti residential complex is situated in the immediate periphery of Terni, on the same
site occupied by the “Italo Balbo” village, built for the city’s steel workers between 1934 and
1938 according to the canons of the Fascist regime: a collection of unhealthy and monotonous
homes still inspired by rural characteristics and devoid of any facilities or services. The old
village, later renamed the Villaggio Matteotti, had fallen into serious conditions of decay when,
in the wake of the many and continuous denunciations by its own inhabitants and as part of a
more general process of regeneration, the Società Terni decided to proceed with its
reconstruction. In 1969 the company invited the architect Giancarlo De Carlo, recognised for
his approach to the profession, to analyse the possibilities related to the rehabilitation of the
neighbourhood. However, De Carlo imposed the respect of particular aspects and procedures.
In particular, he called for the activation of a real process of participative design involving the
area’s future residents. The challenge, despite difficulties and mistrust, was accepted and the
design team initiated a series of encounters with local residents. Meetings were attended by all
potential inhabitants (approx. 1,800) because at the outset the assignees of the new homes
had yet to be decided. The first meetings clearly demonstrated that the architectural culture of
the interviewees was conditioned by traditional constructions in Terni, and thus it was
considered opportune to propose a series of projects realised in other parts of the world based
on diverse lifestyles, in order to stimulate their imaginations. Cesare De Seta was responsible
for the organisation of an exhibition of “modern” residential neighbourhoods in Great Britain,
Switzerland and the United States. A lively debate concluded with the establishment of the
architectural criteria and fundamental requisites. Five blocks composed of different dwelling
units on different levels. The selection of the definitive list of assignees was followed by the
definition of a second classification of needs that led to the definition of three variations for
each nucleus, for a total of 45 different unit layouts.

4.5 General assessment

Referring to the principal requisites that De Carlo intended to respect in the design of the
village, it is possible to identify the reasons behind the quality of life and the strong sense of
belonging that exist in the area today: a considerable increase in density and thus the number
of units, in order to create an urban settlement; reduced building height because at more than
three storeys there is a loss in any opportunity for inhabitants to appropriate public space; the
separation of pedestrian and vehicular paths in order that the neighbourhood could be crossed
entirely on foot easily and at no risk to pedestrians; an elevated offering of collective services;
the incorporation of services into the residential fabric; the elevated standards of public and
private landscaping, accompanied by an intense co penetration of landscaping into built space.

5
Documentation

5.1 principal references

-MCKEAN, John, Giancarlo De Carlo, Des lieux, des homes, Paris, Editions du Centre
Pompidou, 2004 ISBN 2-84426-240-6
-MCKEAN, John, Giancarlo De Carlo, Layered Places, Stuttgart/London, Edition Axel Menges;
2004; ISBN 3-932565-12-6
-ZUCCHI, Benedict, Giancarlo De Carlo, London, Butterworth Architecture, 1992, ISBN 0-
7506-1275-4
-GUCCIONE, M., VITTORINI, A.(eds.), Giancarlo De Carlo, Le ragioni dell’architettura, Milan,
Electa, 2005 ISBN 88-370-3774-0
-MIONI, Angela, OCCHIALINI, Etra Connie (eds.), Giancarlo De Carlo, Immagini e frammenti,
Milan, Electa, 1995, ISBN 88-435-5290-2
-SAMASSA F. (ed.), Giancarlo De Carlo. Inventario analitico dell’archivio – Archivio Progetti,
Padua, Il Poligrafo, 2004, ISBN 88-7115-356-1
-SAMASSA F. (ed.), Giancarlo De Carlo. Percorsi – Archivio Progetti, Padova, Il Poligrafo,
2004, ISBN 88-7115-355-3
-ROSSI Lamberto, Giancarlo De Carlo. Architetture, Milan, Arnoldo Mondadori
Editore, 1988, ISBN 88-04-31185-1

- MILLER, Naomi, Participatory design: Case study. Housing Development Matteotti of

Giancarlo De Carlo, Progressive Architecture, n. 12, December 1976, pp. 72-74
- MURATORE, Giorgio, (ed.), Il nuovo villaggio Matteotti a Terni: un’esperienza di
partecipazione, Casabella n. 421, gennaio 1977 – AnnoXLI, pp.11-35
- DE CARLO, Giancarlo, Die Matteotti-Siedlung in Terni, Deutsche Bauzeitung, Team X, n.11,
1978

5.2 visual material attached

Fig. 1 General view of the neighbourhood (Projects Archive of Iuav University in
Venice, photo by Antonio Garbasso, 1982)
Figs. 2, 3, 4 Meetings with future residents (Projects Archive of Iuav University in Venice,
photo by Mimmo Jodice, 1970)
Fig. 5 Demountable model of one typology, scale 1:50 (Projects Archive of Iuav
University in Venice)
 Fig. 6 Exhibition panel presented at the end of the participative process (Projects
Archive of Iuav University in Venice)
Fig. 7 Model of the entire project. The white parts to the right indicate the built
portion (Projects Archive of Iuav University in Venice)
Fig. 8 A pedestrian street immediately after its completion (Projects Archive of Iuav
University in Venice, photo by Gabriele Basilico, 1976)
Fig. 9 The nursery school, accessible without interferences with vehicular routes
(Projects Archive of Iuav University in Venice, photo by Antonio Garbasso,
1982)
Fig. 10 Passage between the first and second level (Projects Archive of Iuav
University in Venice)
Fig. 11 The terraces (Projects Archive of Iuav University in Venice, photo by Antonio
Garbasso,1982)
Fig. 12 One of the diagonal connections linking the entire neighbourhood (Projects
Archive of Iuav University in Venice, photo by Antonio Garbasso, 1982)
Fig. 13 One of the raised pedestrian connections (Projects Archive of Iuav University
in Venice, photo by Antonio Garbasso, 1982)

5.3 rapporteur/date

Laura Felci/June 2015

figs. 2, 3, 4 Meetings with future residents
fig. 5 Demountable model of one typology, scale 1:50

fig 6 Exhibition panel presented at the end of the participative process

fig. 7 Model of the entire project. The white parts to the right indicate the built portion

fig 8 A pedestrian street immediately after its completion

fig. 9 The nursery school, accessible without interferences with vehicular routes

fig. 10 Passage between the first and second level fig. 11 The terraces
fig. 12 One of the diagonal connections linking the entire neighbourhood

fig 13 One of the raised pedestrian connections