“Greetings from Valle Borghesiana”
A series of postcards shows the suburb Valle Borghesiana. On the front you will find a selection of photos taken by local inhabitants. On the back are excerpts describing the history of this neighborhood, the building of houses, the improving of every day life, and the political organisation from interviews recorded during the SMU workshops.
Postcard 1
Inhabitant:
“Unregulated building in the suburbs really started as a result of large speculations by landowners. But before this could occur, there was the wish of those in government to make Rome a big metropolis. People came from everywhere and not only from Italy. There was a great need for housing, and everybody tried to do what they could, where they could. First there were shacks, then people tried to improve them and turn them into little houses and so on.”
Interviews in Valle Borghesiana: SMU– research 2009 – 2011, Photo by Arianna F., inhabitant of Valle Borghesiana
Download print file postcard 1 english (464 KB)
Download print file cartolina 1 italiano (463 KB)
Postcard 2
Inhabitant:
“There was no chance to find a house for rent. This was mostly because of the complete lack of houses, and because it was impossible to pay rents that at the time were as high as they are now. We turned up here because we bought a piece of property dreaming of building a house on it, just like everybody else did. The land was divided into lots and people came here with the dream of building their own houses.“
Interviews in Valle Borghesiana: SMU– research 2009 – 2011, Photo by Domenico G., inhabitant of Valle Borghesiana
Download print file postcard 2 english (417 KB)
Download print file cartolina 2 italiano (615 KB)
Postcard 3
Inhabitant:
“It sounds like a crazy story that someone with no money can build a house and live in it. And yet that’s what it is. My colleagues would come and help me out when I was pouring concrete, and I would then help them out when they needed support. Let’s just say that I didn’t pay for manpower. I paid for the material that I bought day by day. My brothers used to give me a hand, as well as some strangers. That is why it waspossible to do it.”
Interviews in Valle Borghesiana: SMU– research 2009 – 2011, Photo by Donemico G., inhabitant of Valle Borghesiana
Download print file postcard 3 english (820 KB)
Download print file cartolina 3 italiano (818 KB)
Postcard 4
SMU: “You have been without water living for seven years?”
Inhabitant:
“Without electricity. We did have water at alternate intervals. We had a generator that worked by the hour. When it worked at all. Because we were 4 to 5 families, we had to take turns filling in petrol. The problem here is the hills: Water reaches the houses at the bottom, but not the ones at the top. That’s the thing. So we had to agree on who would take turns filling up the tank with a rubber hosepipe and one or two little motors.”
Interviews in Valle Borghesiana: SMU– research 2009 – 2011, Photo by Donemico G., inhabitant of Valle Borghesiana
Download print file postcard 4 english (588 KB)
Download print file cartolina 4 italiano (586 KB)
Postcard 5
SMU: “And what about electricity?”
Inhabitant:
“We got electricity in 1986-1987. And that was still another kind of war with the Municipality because we wanted to change the law: If you had built before 1980 you could be connected to electricity, but if you had built after that you couldn’t. So we all went to the Municipality and we succeeded. We changed the law in order to be all connected to electricity. I remember that these movements to the Municipality of Rome or to different Ministries gave the citizens a sense of peace. There was true participation.”
Interviews in Valle Borghesiana: SMU– research 2009 – 2011, Photo by Arianna F., inhabitant of Valle Borghesiana
Download print file postcard 5 english (568 KB)
Download print file cartolina 5 italiano (566 KB)
Greetings from Valle Borghesiana
Download print file flyer english (246 KB)
Download print file flyer italian (242 KB)
