MUTUALITY
TOR BELLA MONACA
A small neighbourhood, a concentration of cement built starting in the early 1980s, in the south-eastern part of the city, beyond the Grande Raccordo Anulare (Rome’s ring road), where 50% of the homes belong to the City of Rome and the rest to cooperatives or individuals. It can be perceived as a densely populated neighbourhood surrounded by a great void. Looking beyond the grey of the buildings, what emerges is a great vitality that erupts from these walls: it’s a laboratory of ideas, where mutuality attempts to make up for the surrounding desolation. According to Claudia: “The CuboLibro was a block of reinforced concrete, when I arrived in 2008 it was overwhelmed by books. You could only walk on a row of tiles because the rest was occupied by shelves overflowing with books, magazines, all donations from the neighbourhood’s residents, who had recovered this place from a state of complete abandonment, as it was becoming too dangerous, in 2005, reclaiming their right to culture, their right to have a neighbourhood library!”