The Corviale is a one-kilometer-long housing project on the edge of Rome and the surrounding rural landscape, where one would typically expect to find individual villas. Constructed in the 1970s, Corviale embodies the legacy of modernist periphery urbanism and architecture: large-scale housing organized as an autonomous small city, bearing sociopolitical agendas for the public good. Like other modernist housing developments of that time, Corviale today is in disrepair, facing a divided public who calls for both its demolition and regeneration. The Corviale complex raises many questions that we have faced in our own speculative urban proposals, built work, and research, such as: at what scale should architecture and urbanism be designed? How do buildings and cities adapt over time? How have politics and economics affected, or have been affected by, architecture? Visiting and analyzing Corviale will offer insight into its complex current conditions.

The photograph of Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample was taken by Michael Vahrenwald.