In May, events and debates shine a spotlight on areas still too often seen as “non-places”, yet increasingly emerging as spaces of regeneration and new urban centrality
In Rome, May is dedicated to the peripheries, understood not as marginal areas but as active spaces of transformation and urban identity-building. From 8 to 31 May, the fifth edition of the Festival delle Periferie is taking place, promoted by the Department of Culture and the Museo delle Periferie, under the umbrella of Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, with artistic direction by Giorgio de Finis. The programme features a wide range of events and debates, with the 2026 edition centred on the theme “Super Lieux” / “Super Places”. The title pays tribute to the definition of “super place” coined by anthropologist Marc Augé for the MAAM – Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove – and turns it into a broader paradigm for grassroots regeneration. “The peripheries are not a geographical margin. The theme guiding the 2026 edition takes us to all those places that, together with the city, are transforming and regenerating today. Places that are expanding and changing their nature to become third places: open, accessible, hyper-connected spaces, and a possible foundation, for anyone who wants it, for knowledge, deeper understanding and encounter,” says Rome’s Councillor for Culture, Massimiliano Smeriglio.
The focus is therefore on the revival of Rome beyond the Grande Raccordo Anulare, through a map of regeneration that connects territories rewriting their social and architectural role. From MAAM and Tor Marancia — examples of how urban art can transform residential housing into cultural assets — to Corviale, the “giant serpent” challenging its own monumental scale through new processes of integration, and on to the former SNIA factory and Piazza Tevere, spaces of environmental and civic reclamation both at the heart and on the edges of the city.
“While it is undeniable that margins often go hand in hand with marginality, it is also true that many negative connotations arise from the paradigmatic opposition between centre and periphery — that is, from an idea of the city that duplicates itself in its opposite. There is no doubt that centres play a leading role in the creation of the periphery,” notes artistic director Giorgio de Finis.
Piazza Tevere: Art as a Driver of the River’s Ecological Revival
What was once an abandoned stretch of embankment is now the beating heart of a Roman “super place”. Piazza Tevere is not simply a geographical area, but an urban and cultural invention born from an intuition by American artist Kristin Jones.
Its ambition is clear: to transform the stretch of the Tiber between Ponte Sisto and Ponte Mazzini — a perfect rectangle echoing the proportions of the Circus Maximus arena — into a permanent hub for contemporary art.
Piazza Tevere’s distinctive feature lies in its sustainable approach. The festival has made widely known the technique of selectively removing the biological patina from travertine through hydro-cleaning. With zero impact and no use of paints or chemical solvents, the artworks emerge from the contrast between accumulated dirt and clean stone, naturally fading over time.
Tor Marancia: The Urbanism of Perception in the “Condominium Museum”
In the heart of the former Shanghai neighbourhood — once known for its flooding and today an international symbol of street art — regeneration is not only a matter of colour, but also of new ways of seeing.
The project “Vedere” / “Seeing”, curated by Carlo Infante and Urban Experience, brings back to Tor Marancia a pioneering experience of urban exploration that overturns the concept of disability, transforming it into a cognitive resource for reading the territory.
The route culminates in the Condominium Museum of Tor Marancia, an international case study in urban resilience. Here, monumental artworks on building façades were not imposed from above, but emerged from a process of community reappropriation.
The encounter with residents, who act as active custodians of the project, shows how care for the common good is the true social infrastructure needed to support architectural change.
Roma Kintsugi: Repairing Urban Fractures with the Gold of Regeneration
Not simply reconstruction, but the precious enhancement of the wounds of the urban fabric. In Roma Kintsugi (Bordeaux Edizioni), architects and researchers Pepe Barbieri and Alessandro Lanzetta propose a paradigm shift for the future of the capital.
The metaphor is borrowed from the celebrated Japanese art of repairing ceramics with gold: Rome’s “fractures” — its fragmented peripheries, industrial voids and infrastructural margins — should not be hidden, but brought into a system capable of generating new metropolitan value.
Three pillars support this vision: ecological networks, to transform residual territories into green corridors and strengthen environmental resilience; soft mobility, to create capillary connections capable of overcoming the barriers produced by private transport and major road infrastructure; and voids as opportunities, to reinterpret disused areas as relational spaces ready to host new public and social functions.
Corviale Green: The Challenge of the “Green Kilometre”
Mario Fiorentino’s concrete giant, a symbol of 1970s public housing, is undergoing a radical metamorphosis. At the centre of international architectural debate, Corviale now presents itself as a laboratory of sustainability and social innovation.
The Green Kilometre project, led by architect Guendalina Salimei with Tstudio, marks the transition from a “monument to decay” to a model of eco-compatible regeneration.
The heart of the intervention concerns the famous fourth floor, originally conceived as a service area and left in a state of suspension for decades. Its redevelopment has made it possible to experiment with new housing types: contemporary apartments designed to encourage the shared use of spaces.
It is an evolved model of social housing, bringing together the right to housing, energy efficiency, architectural quality and the integration of greenery, while helping to mitigate the visual and environmental impact of the structure.
Cover image: Intervention by Innocenti at Tor Marancia © All rights reserved
