The Museum of the Other and Elsewhere Metropoliz (MAAM)—a former sausage factory on the outskirts of Rome that has been occupied and inhabited by migrants from many different parts of the world—is currently facing a new challenge. After years of being tolerated, the museum is now set to be legalized, while additional social housing is planned for the site. It has been announced that part of the new housing will eventually be reserved for the current residents of the MAAM.
As far as we can tell, this initiative is an attempt by the current mayor to secure the future of the site before a possible takeover of the city government by the far right. At the same time, however, legalization—with its regulations and housing rules—poses a serious threat to this remarkable place, whose strength lies in its combination of precarious everyday life, political self-organization, and artistic practice.
Now that the first social housing project to be built in Rome in decades is planned for this site—and with it the dominant model of social urban planning enters the picture—it is worth taking the MAAM seriously as a lived alternative and examining it closely. The study presented on these pages brings together our own observations with contributions from residents, who generously showed us, mapped, and described their environment. All quotations and drawings included here originate from them.
The MAAM interweaves public spaces with very small private living units that residents have constructed within the existing factory structure. Some have no natural daylight, while others rely on small, unglazed openings directly onto the corridors for ventilation. Yet everyone we spoke to told us how much they enjoy living here. Some have even declined offers to move into more conventional housing. There are good reasons for this.
What qualities have the residents created here, and can these be translated into new housing developments? Can tactics of appropriation become strategies of planning? And can such a strategy prevail in the forthcoming negotiations about the future of the MAAM?
