This exceptionally long porticoed building for modern public housing is an innovative structure of high architectural quality that is still anchored in local history. Constructed according to rigorous functionalist principles, the “Treno della Barca” presents a modern re-elaboration of the traditional Bolognese portico to which it gives new life in a peripheral area of the city, highlighting its ongoing expressive vitality and identity-forging force rooted in a centuries-long tradition. The ongoing maintenance of this and other residential structures in the area—often by their own inhabitants—has protected this peripheral part of the city from degradation, becoming a model of social inclusiviness, as well as of architectural excellence.