Bathing facilities: memory and survey of a forgotten coastal heritage

The contribution summarizes the results of a study on the events related to the design and the construction of the beach resort 'Roma', an imposing architectural complex located on the Roman coastal area. This beach resort, which was inaugurated in 1924, had been designed by one of the leaders of the Roman School, Giovan Battista Milani (1876-1940). The resort complex is the striking symbol of the urban transformation of the coastal township of Ostia (Roma). Its demolition, during the Second World War, generated a substantial alteration of the urban and social fabric of the new-town. A century after its inauguration, through a survey of the memory, we intend to add cognitive details which will enable the tracing of the design history of the lost architecture, both through a direct observation of graphic, iconographic and textual documents and through virtual reconstructions, thus returning a plausible framework for this forgotten coastal heritage.