Quartiere Garbatella

Southern Rome


A favourite location for films and TV, Quartiere Garbatella was originally conceived as a workers’ residential quarter, but in the 1920s the Fascists hijacked the project and used the area to house people who’d been displaced by construction work in the city. 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, is typical of the rather brutish style. Nearby is the other trademark building, Teatro Palladium.


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