CASE POPOLARI

POPULAR HOUSING. — Popular housing refers to urban or rural residential buildings intended for low-income families living on fixed wages or modest incomes.

Historically, popular housing is of recent origin, although in a certain sense the Roman *insula* may be considered its first type: a multi-story building intended for rental, composed of undifferentiated rooms served by corridors and steep staircases. In the 16th century, sporadic examples can be found, but it was only in the 19th century that true popular housing emerged, driven by the overcrowding of the working class due to industrial development.

In London in 1814, societies were founded for the construction of popular housing for workers and employees in the city's outskirts. In Turin in 1849, the municipal council proposed the construction of popular housing, and in 1853 approved direct municipal participation in the enterprise. In 1850, societies and cooperatives were formed in Verviers, Mulhouse, Saarbrücken, and Essen. In the United States, the *Improved Dwellings Association* is noted for popular housing constructions in New York and Philadelphia, and in Italy, the 1885 convention of the La Spezia municipality for the erection of a workers' district. In this flourishing of initiatives, industry was not last and resolutely engaged in providing housing for its employees.

Legislation followed private initiative, and in Italy, inspired by Belgian experience, the first comprehensive law on workers' popular housing was passed in 1903, followed by numerous laws and regulations. After early experiments and alongside early labor social achievements, the popular housing issue moved beyond strictly technical and economic concerns. Initially vague but later with greater authority, the idea took hold that housing should not be subject to speculation, eventually leading to the modern thesis that it should be accessible to all, especially the less fortunate, much like schools, transportation, and postal services.

At the same time, the concept of access to ownership, as well as rental, gained ground, making it possible for anyone to become the owner of a suitable home through savings over a number of years, aided by economic provisions such as advances from entities (cooperative societies, municipalities, states, employers) and financial or tax incentives, as economists have outlined and regulated in various forms, both in the statutes of societies, financing bodies, and cooperatives, and in the vast legislation of all civilized states.

[Courtesy of the Istituto Case Popolari]
Popular Housing – Constructions by the Istituto per le Case Popolari of the Province of Rome – Tufello District.

Noteworthy is the interest shown by entrepreneurs in the issue, sometimes for the advantage of binding skilled labor to themselves materially or morally, often through acts of generosity driven by contingent reasons, or more precisely and today primarily by a sense of social duty.

The entrepreneur's interest proves most effective when both parties remain on equal footing, avoiding relationships of benefactor and beneficiary. The growing awareness of their human dignity among workers in the evolution of society prevents them from accepting anything they do not perceive as the fruit of their own labor, making gratuitous assistance sometimes suspect. Therefore, for an entrepreneur to provide housing for employees, it must be done by facilitating their ability to acquire it over time through work and savings, rather than imposing gratitude through charity or paternalism.

Within the social framework, popular housing plays a prominent role as an effective factor in education and uplift. In the precarious and often meager living conditions of wage earners and those with limited incomes, dependent on others for sustenance, the concept of housing security—and even more so, ownership of popular housing—becomes an active element in shifting social relations toward cordiality and solidarity rather than indifference and antagonism. The dignity of a free person is more easily attained by those secure in their housing, where they find concretized the ancient and constant human aspiration to property. For individuals and families, popular housing—even if small and modest—designed and executed with meticulous care, generous spirit, and affectionate attention, exerts a continuous, discreet, and lasting educational influence, as it is well known that much of a person's immediate impressions and spiritual imprint comes from their environment.

Economic considerations have thus far confined popular housing to the outskirts, in wretched and dreary districts that materially accentuate class divisions. The idea now gaining ground is that popular housing should be integrated within the city, distinguished only by rigorous economy in design and construction. This way, the working population lives in closer contact with other social classes, to mutual benefit, as only intimate and continuous knowledge fosters clearer understanding or at least serene tolerance. Such knowledge spurs the lower classes toward fruitful emulation and the more affluent toward a deeper sense of social solidarity. In the resurgent Christian society, alongside the Church and the school, popular housing stands as a vital field of experience, teaching, and often apostolate. Thus, its construction cannot be adequately addressed by economic measures alone but must also be approached with an act of faith.

**Typical Buildings.** — Buildings are classified into three types: a) isolated popular housing, with one to four dwellings; b) row housing, with one or two dwellings; c) block housing, with multiple dwellings.

Type a) is theoretically ideal as it allows for maximum independence for each family, optimal building orientation, and easy adaptability to any terrain. Each popular housing unit has a green space, divided into plots for each dwelling, usable as a garden or vegetable plot. These advantages are offset by the high cost of land.

For a housing unit, due to the considerable extent of common services such as roads, sewerage, gas and water pipelines, electrical and telephone lines.

Type b) consists of a succession of more elements with one or two dwellings, built side by side. It is rarely used in Italy, more common in France, Belgium, in the Anglo-Saxon countries and also in the United States, where entire villages of terraced houses in parallel rows arise. The effect is monotonous and depressing, unless the architect's taste intervenes to vary the cadenced succession of identical elements. The terraces have a green space at the front and back divided into lots corresponding to the dwellings. The adoption of this type is convenient for small extra-urban agglomerations, when they can be arranged on the sides or on one side of the provincial road, without building other roads.

Type c) is the most economical, especially in urban areas; the scheme is a multi-storey building in an open or closed block, oriented according to the best sunlight. General expenses for land, construction and services are reduced to a minimum; electrical and telephone lines, pipelines and roads are short and rationally exploited. The block type allows, for the same expenditure per housing unit, a more complete and perfect arrangement of plants and services compared to the other types. The space between the building blocks must be equal to their height, to guarantee a minimum of sunlight to the lower floors during the winter months. Access to the dwellings is via the staircase landing, with two or three entrances; the entrance from a common balcony, already practiced in the past, is little used in Italy, more common in Northern Europe.

There are no absolute reasons for the pre-eminence of the three types; they are adopted from time to time according to evaluations depending on climate, terrain, location, economy; often successful urban planning solutions are achieved with careful use of the three types in the same place.

Carlo M. Cclcghin