OASE 117 / Project Village
Elemental Villages
Gregory E. Cartelli
La Martella, an Architecture of Feeling: Ludovico Quaroni’s Translation of the Sassi Cave City into an Ideal Rural Village
In 1951, the Italian National Institute for Urban Planning (INU), under the direction of Adriano Olivetti, commissioned architect Ludovico Quaroni to build a new settlement in La Martella for the people evicted from the Sassi of Matera, who were living in poverty in houses dug out of the rock. This project was an important experiment for
post-war Italian architecture, as it used anthropological studies as a basis for urban planning, leading to the proposal of a modern rural village. Seventy years after its inception, it is important to examine the social, political and architectural impact of La Martella, both today and from a historical perspective.