Garbatella

Neighborhood · Garbatella (Municipio VIII)Rome,Italy

A 1920s garden suburb on the hills south of Rome, low blocks around shared planted courtyards, addressed by lot number rather than street.

Garbatella is a 1920s garden suburb on the hills south of central Rome, built as low blocks around shared courtyards. You walk in off the street through an arch and come out in a planted courtyard with fruit trees, outside staircases and washing lines, then out the other side into the next one. Every block looks older than it is, with gables that curve, arched galleries and a stair tower on a corner. Each group of buildings is a lotto with a number, and residents still give directions by lotto rather than by street. More than sixty lotti were built, and the quarter changed purpose while they were going up. Through the 1920s Mussolini's government was cutting new avenues through the centre of Rome and demolishing the quarters in the way, and the evicted families had to go somewhere. Between 1927 and 1929 Innocenzo Sabbatini built three large blocks here as temporary housing, with communal kitchens, laundries, a nursery and shared bathrooms. Families stayed in them for years. The largest is deep red and carries the size and grand front of a public building.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Navigate by lot numbers, not street names — the plaques on the gateposts carry them, and residents will answer a question about lotto 24 faster than one about an address.
Walk it in the morning or early afternoon — these are people's homes and courtyards, and the quarter has almost no evening life for a visitor to join.
Step into the courtyards quietly and do not photograph washing or windows — the gates are usually open, but you are walking through somebody's shared garden, not a monument.

Things to do

1
Walk into a courtyard and out the other side
Pick any lotto — the numbered blocks the quarter is built from — with its gate open and walk through. Inside there are fruit trees, benches, washing hung on lines and an outside staircase running up the wall to the upper flats. Most courtyards have a second gate on the far side, so you can cross the whole quarter through them instead of along the streets.
2
Stand in front of the red block
On Piazza Michele da Carbonara, the largest of the suburban hotels rises deep red above the square, with arched openings and a tower. It was built to house families evicted from the centre, and it contained shared kitchens and a nursery. It was emergency accommodation, but it was designed to look like a palace.
3
Sit in the square in front of the theatre
Piazza Bartolomeo Romano is the centre of the quarter, with the Palladium theatre on one side, a couple of bars and a broad run of steps. Sit there for twenty minutes. This is a working residential district, and the ordinary daily life crossing the square is what you came to see.