The casa di ringhiera (
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
pl. case di ringhiera, literally "guard rail houses") is a type of popular housing characterized by several flats sharing the same open gallery on each floor. Such galleries run the whole length of the building, provide access to the individual housing units and face an inner courtyard, which, in some buildings, provided the only access to the toilets. In most cases, however, the toilets were at the end of the gallery and were shared by the inhabitants of a single floor. The vast majority of such buildings has been renovated, with bathrooms created inside the flats.
Tenants of Casa di ringhiera are able to see most of their neighbors from their flats, and the buildings are known for their communal living.
Case di ringhiera typically have three floors (but can have up to six) over a ground floor intended for commercial use. Typically, they have no balconies on the outer side of the building, which, together with their colour (they were traditionally painted a dark yellow, which many of them still retain) made them stand out among buildings of the same age. They were chiefly built around the turn of the 20th century in large towns in Northwestern
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
; however, convents, farmhouses and other structures were built according to the same model at least as early as the 16th century; in spite of the relatively limited period and area in which they were built, and of successive demolitions, case di ringhiera are still numerous today, with 70,000 (about 11% of the total) such living units in
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
alone.
See also
*
Chawl
A chawl ( Marathi: चाळ) is a type of residential building found in western India, similar to a tenement. Typically low quality housing, chawls are generally associated with poverty. The first chawls were constructed in the early 1700s, as ...
a very similar type of housing built in the same period, and for the same purposes, in Western India, especially in the city of Mumbai.
*
Corrala, casa de corredor, or edificación de vecindad, a similar structure typical of
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
, but also found in some other towns in
Castile, as well as in parts of
Andalusia
Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...
and some other cities in Spain.
External links
http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/architetture/tipologie/3.126/?current=1
Listed case di ringhiera in
Lombardy
The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...
References
{{Portal, architecture
Architecture in Italy
Housing