Vanishing PlacesReclaiming Traces of Sardinia’s Agrarian Reform Settlements

The Authority for Land Transformation and Agricultural Development in Sardinia (Ente per la Trasformazione Fondiaria e Agraria in Sardegna – ETFAS) was established in May 1951 under Italy’s Legge Stralcio, with the aim of reclaiming land and providing infrastructure and new settlements for the farmers assigned plots through the agrarian reform. Responding to Sardinia’s marked geographical and environmental diversity (ETFAS, 1962), the programme envisaged seven residential villages, thirty-three service centres, fifty isolated rural schools and fifteen chapels. Since the prevailing settlement model was based on scattered farmsteads, service centres were strategically located to provide collective facilities for a dispersed rural population. This territorial approach drew on studies conducted in the Nurra by UNRRA-CASAS for Sardinia’s resettlement programme, developed by an interdisciplinary team whose members included architect Fernando Clemente and UNRRA engineer Oreste Noto. The subsequent design of the ETFAS settlements brought together architects and professionals active on both the national and local architectural scene: Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini, Marco Zanuso and Pietro Crescini, Bruno Virdis, Vico Mossa, Luciano Deplano, as well as Clemente and Noto.

The ambitions of the reform extended beyond the physical transformation of the land. Through its Social Service, ETFAS also pursued what it described as a process of “human transformation” (ETFAS, 1958), intended to reshape the social and productive life of the assignees alongside their agricultural practices. This pervasive institutional presence added a further layer to the demanding conditions of settlement: the establishment of new rural communities was accompanied by forms of assistance, education and supervision intended to adapt families to the economic and social model promoted by the reform. Within only a few years, however, the settlement system began to experience abandonment by the assignees. As Di Felice observes, this process was already underway during the 50s, before the attraction of the industrial centres of northern Italy became a major factor (Di Felice, 2005). Contemporary criticism also exposed structural difficulties. Giuseppina Marcialis emphasised both the considerable distances separating the settlements and the isolation of social centres from the houses they were intended to serve, while noting the Sardinian rural population’s traditional attachment to communal life (Marcialis, 1957).

Sardinia’s ETFAS settlements are today marked by the coexistence of neglect and persistence. In recent decades, neglect has primarily affected the collective infrastructure rather than the settlements as a whole. While most houses remain inhabited, schools, social centres and other public facilities have progressively lost their functions and now survive as fragments of the civic system originally conceived to sustain new rural communities. Recent photographs document the current condition of some of these settlements, revealing an almost suspended landscape. Yet these places cannot simply be described as ruins or deserted villages. Where resident communities endure, a limited number of services remain active, revealing different degrees of neglect and continuity. Neglect and persistence are therefore not opposing conditions, but simultaneous processes shaping the contemporary identity of these settlements. What is vanishing is not only a material heritage, but the network of relationships between public architecture, services and community life on which the original project depended. At the same time, surviving buildings, enduring communities and active civic traces preserve the legibility of the original project. Read as a dispersed territorial network rather than as isolated remnants, these settlements invite renewed reflection on how their architectural and communal legacy might foster new relationships between landscape, services and contemporary forms of living.

The photographic survey was carried out by the authors of the essay in July 2026.

Credits for the drawings: Agenzia LAORE Sardegna - Historical Archive.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Di Felice, Maria Luisa. 2005. Terra e lavoro: uomini e istituzioni nell’esperienza della riforma agraria in Sardegna (1950–1962). Rome: Carocci.

ETFAS. 1958. Servizio sociale. Milan: Electa.

ETFAS. 1962. Case rurali e borghi. Cagliari: Centro Sardo di Documentazione.

Marcialis, Giuseppina. 1957. “Considerazioni sulle nuove borgate rurali in Sardegna.” Casabella-Continuità 216: 87–90.