Past glories and future challenges: towns, cities and the landscape in the Pontine Plain

The Pontine Plain extends to the southeast of Rome in between the Volscian Mountains and the Tyrrhenian Sea reaching Cape Circeo. This neatly designed countryside is the result of a long history of reclamation projects, including construction of the Appian Way and works undertaken from 1928 to 1935 following Mussolini’s “ruralisation” policy. This recent “integral reclamation” integrated hydraulic and agricultural works, inner colonization, construction of roads, villages and five agro-towns: Littoria, Sabaudia, Pontinia, Aprilia and Pomezia. In the aftermath of WWII, however, the new towns developed independently, overlooking the newly acquired agricultural vocation. Based on research and fieldwork carried out by the authors in the framework of the EU-funded project MODSCAPES (Modernist reinventions of the rural landscape) this paper focuses on reclamation schemes pre-dating the Fascist period. While the bulk of these schemes bears evidence to an epic challenge engaging experts from all over Europe, some of them schemes clearly show an anti-urbanist approach, which might provide useful insights to face future challenges.