Negotiating the middle-class city. Housing and equipping post-war Turin, 1950-1980

Abstract

The article explores the pattern of fragmented public spaces and collective facilities built in Turin between the 1950s and the 1970s, as the result of negotiation processes conducted between public institutions, private developers and professionals over the design and construction of housing devoted to the middle-class. Considering three developments – the complexes of Moncalieri and Collegno located at the outskirts of the city, and the new residential district of Quartiere Ippodromo in the southern sector – the article observes public facilities as the outcome of a set of different policies, mirroring the encounter between an heterogeneous set of actors and initiatives: from the scale of the playground close to the condominio to the public park at the edge of the new residential sectors, from the neighborhood’s kindergartens and primary schools, to the community and sports centers in the new districts. During this period, houses devoted to middle-class and new public facilities were negotiated, designed and built simultaneously, bringing light to the fragmented process of construction that generated post-war Turin, implemented through series of punctual agreements between private and public actors. Through an uncommon approach, that aims at combining traditional sources with the analysis of less explored planning tools (mainly the convenzioni urbanistiche and the piani di lottizzazione), the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the development of post-war Italian cities, by looking at the aggregation of houses and facilities as two dimensions of inhabiting/living – closely interrelated in middle class housing – that together contribute to actively build the “ordinary” city. Nowadays this interrelationship still represents a focal point of social cohesion, urban quality and liveability.