Cagliari, Case I.N.C.I.S.

The large building of the I.N.C.I.S. (National Institute for the Homes of State Employees) occupies a large area with the main front on Piazza Galilei, not far from the so-called “Campo Carreras” (today Via Bacaredda) where the first public housing in Cagliari was built in the first decade of the twentieth century. These are 63 lodgings for about 400 rooms in total intended for state employees, who through the formula of redemption could become their owners.
Inaugurated in 1927 to a design by architect Augusto Valente, the building is spread over a polygonal surface with a series of buildings arranged over an entire block and connected by courtyards. The facades rest on a fake ashlar base and are crossed vertically by pilasters connected by a projecting ledge. The main entrance to the square has a wide arched opening closed by a gate and is flanked by windows in which the use of a cultured language is evident even in the decorations.
Even the stairwells are spacious and crossed by beautiful decorated wrought iron railings.

History of studies
A review of studies can be found in the bibliography relating to the fact sheet in the volume of the “History of Art in Sardinia” on nineteenth-century architecture (2001).

Bibliography

I.N.C.I.S.. The work of the institute in its first three-year period, Rome 1929, p. 44;
“State Employee Homes by the National Institute 'I.N.C.I.S.' Cagliari”, in Italian Architecture, 2, 1931, pp. 24-26;
M. Pintus, “Architectures”, in Cagliari Historic Neighborhoods. Villanova, Cinisello Balsamo, A. Pizzi, 1991, pp. 150 and 159;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the end of the 20th century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 95.