Quartiere Garbatella

A favourite location for TV and filmmakers, Quartiere Garbatella is a wonderfully atmospheric district with its own idiosyncratic look. It was originally conceived as a workers’ residential quarter but in the 1920s the Fascists hijacked the project and used the area to house people displaced by construction work in the city centre. Many people were moved into alberghi suburbani (suburban hotels), big housing blocks designed by Innocenzo Sabbatini, the leading light of the ‘Roman School’ of architecture. The most famous, Albergo Rosso (Piazza Michele da Carbonara) is typical of the style. Other trademark buildings are the Scuola Cesare Battisti on Piazza Damiano Sauli and Teatro Palladium on Piazza Bartolomeo Romano.