The Hardcore Discipline of Coordination: Mario Fiorentino, Housing, and the Project of Corviale Pier Vittorio Aureli

Nuovo Corviale is famous for its nine-story-high and one-kilometer-long linear structure complemented by smaller housing bars and services. Partially completed in 1981, Corviale houses 8,500 residents. Since its completion, Corviale has become one of the most controversial examples of public housing built of the last century. For this reason, most of the abundant literature on Corviale has focused on the lives of its inhabitants and their vicissitudes. There is no doubt that this side of the story is important. However, in his revisionist essay “The Hardcore Discipline of Coordination: Mario Fiorentino, Housing, and the Project of Corviale,” Pier Vittorio Aureli avoids the post-occupancy discourse and focuses instead on Corviale as a project. In doing so, the essay does not simply look at Corviale itself, but retraces Mario Fiorentino’s work on housing in order to show how the idea of Corviale emerged from this work. Aureli’s argument is that, by focusing on Corviale as project, we can reclaim its legacy—along with the very idea of public housing—from its current neoliberal nemesis.