Having a Roman wife and a son who speaks fluent Italian I have been very fortunate to visit Italy many times, to have made many Italian friends and to have been able to immerse myself in the Italian way of life.  I have also been to places that I would never have visited without my Italian family. A case in point is Sabaudia.

Sabaudia is located 100 kilometres to the south of Rome, situated on flat, drained marshes and protected from the sea by several kilometres of high sand dunes. It was designed and  built from scratch in 1934, after a competition that was won by a group of young architects, all members of the Movimento Italiano Per L’Architettura Rationale, the Rationalist Architectural Movement, one of the many architectural movements that sprung up in the years between the First and Second World Wars and thereafter.

The town was conceived as a centre for the booming agricultural activity of the region, supplying Rome in particular. This is still evident in the surrounding countryside, but today the town and the area is known as much for being a seaside resort, predominantly visited by Romans, many of who own second homes there. 

The town contains some beautiful examples of Rationalist and Futurist architectural design, including the town hall and the church. I have been visiting the region since the late 1990’s and it is difficult to separate the design elements from the political philosophies that were the catalyst for its creation and it would be insensitive to do so: for example there is a fresco on the facade of the church which contains the portrait of a local worker who has the face of Mussolini. This was also an issue in the 1950’s and 1960’s when members of Rome’s artistic community visited the area for the beautiful beaches and the surrounding pine forests.