Albergo Bianco

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Lotto 41 or Albergo Bianco (White Hotel) by Innocenzo Sabbatini, 1928
Piazza Michele da Carbonara, Garbatella
Rome, April 2013

“Ultimately, these hotels are nothing but public dormitories, or rather, ghettos, where poor people whose houses were destroyed have to live in close quarters with other families. Basically, the internal organisation had been conceived for services located on the ground floor: storage rooms, kitchens, refectories, nurseries, clinics, welfare offices, etc. In the Red Hotel the church and primary schools were located, while the White Hotel contained the nursery. The rooms on the upper floors could house single people divided according to sex, or family units: it was an ante litteram lager but, obviously, the Media sung its praises. … After all, in a dictatorial regime the media say what the regime wants them to … we know that all too well!” (“A counter history” of modern architecture: Rome 1900-1940, edited by Ettore Maria Mazzola)