Fascism and Architecture (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
This dissertation examines a building program for Fascist headquarters, or Case del Fascio, established by the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) during the years of Italian Fascism, from 1922 to 1943. The PNF planned over 11,000 buildings by 1943 on the Italian mainland and in their colonial territories. This examination is a chronological study of these buildings demonstrating that the PNF expressed its political messages in built-form. Between 1919 and 1943, the PNF developed its political ideology, documented in the Statute of 1921, and its modifications in 1926, 1929, 1932, and 1938. The PNF building program mirrored their constantly modified political goals, as well as the PNF's decisions in areas of culture, religion, and foreign policy. The physical form of the Casa del Fascio embodied the PNF's evolving character that changed from fringe to progressive, to dominant, to authoritarian and militaristic. While the politicians developed programmatic needs for the PNF headquarters building, many architects developed their own consensus about its design from articles in their professional periodicals. Journalists featured PNF sponsored competitions for Case del Fascio, Palazzi del Littorio, and Torri Littorieall versions or components of the developing headquarters building. Wide spread participation of architects in national competitions for fascist headquarters allowed architects to observe other solutions and offer their interpretations. Articles and newsreels of building inaugurations aided the architect's view of the PNF's preferred examples. What began as a clandestine meeting space evolved into a building that could be identified at a distance as a Casa del Fascioa symbol of the PNF, if not Mussolini, himself. However, no one model stood as the template for the new political building. Variations in form, plan configuration, and aesthetics continued until the PNF's 1943 demise, despite the 1936 "Declaration of the Empire" and the PNF's association with Germany-which would have suggested a government-sanctioned "monumental Roman" model. The outcome reveals that architects had unusually strong design control. My study is a chronological analysis, using over 4,000 architectural examples, overlaid with the changing ideology of the PNF, which reveals the reactive design interpretations by professional architects during the Ventennio.
Fascism and its Afterlife in Architecture
Museum and Society, 2017
The recent opening to the public of large-scale National Socialist installations in Germany-like the Denkort Bunker "Valentin" in Bremen-Farge-has prompted questions on how to address the legacy of Nazi advances in science and technology in musealized spaces, and, more generally, how to curate inconvenient military history. To tackle these questions, the issue of affect is crucial. Curation must be able to confront articulations of right-wing extremist "reactionary" affect in and beyond the museum setting. This has been a challenge for Dresden's newly redesigned Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr, whose anti-militaristic message is being drowned out by right-wing xenophobic demonstrations in Dresden's streets. This paper seeks to counter current curatorial strategies that displace and suppress affect. By considering affect's productive potential without ignoring the record of Nazi manipulations of affect, it proposes the concept of an 'upstander' museum and delineates a new methodology for rethinking affect in curatorial settings.
Tradition and Heritage in the Contemporary Image of the City
A b s t r a c t During the fascist government, many buildings are realized in Italy, according to a policy of modernization and new mass society creation. Primarily the buildings are new managerial and service centers for the community. It follows specific formal and typological issues. In particular they have to be able to arrange many different activities. The intellectual society presents strong polemics about the definition of the best and most functional architectural language. The debate focuses on the role of the architecture in country reorganization. The relationship between " modernity " and " tradition " is topical, although interpreted in different ways, accordingly to the themes of " monumentality " and "classic esprit " .
DISSONANT HERITAGE: DECODING THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE OF RATIONALIST ARCHITECTURE IN FASCIST ITALY
ACTA ACADEMIAE ARTIUM VILNENSIS, 2017
Modernist architecture in fascist Italy, unlikely the Third Reich and Soviet union, was not perceived as unworthy. Quite the contrary, rationalist architecture became a part of a state propaganda. According to Marco De Michelis, Mussolini was aware of the great potential hidden in the connection of modernism and imperial monumentality. At the same time, the issue of ethic values of architecture had been discussed. In 1931 Pietro Maria Bardi openly admitted that “Fascist architecture and fascist town planning are in need of moral intervention. Everything in the way of architecture should be rigorously supervised and screened and strict judgement should be made in the name of the idea envisioned by Mussolini of a moralization in Italy”. The Mussolini’s architectural policy was a complex phenomenon. Marcello Piacentini’s buildings in Rome were the monumental architecture of power. Whereas, on the other side, Rationalist architects designed much smaller, modern buildings across the whole Italy (for example: Houses of Monther and Child or post offices). Although modernist buildings did not have many details of symbolic meaning, they clearly fulfilled the program of the Fascist Party. Richard Ettlin called them “the secular churches of the Fascist state”. In 20s and 30s. along the Adriatic coast, a number of “colonies” for children was built. They were a part of a social program, who was suppose to help poor Italian families, and, at the same time, breed young followers of fascist ideology. Modernist architecture of the colonies was supposed to play important role in this process. Nowadays, the architecture of the fascist era, appears to become a dissonant heritage. Its specific architectural code impacts on the process of preservation and/or destruction. Although, those buildings frequently present high artistic values, the historical aspects impact on their present condition, which is often a ruin.
A Fascist architecture case study from Como, Italy: Sede dell'Unione Fascista Lavoratori dell'Industria - ULI, 2022
On the Sede dell'Unione Fascista Lavoratori dell'Industria - ULI, an example of Modern architecture, the construction of which was completed in 1943 and designed by the Italian architect Cesare Cattaneo (P. Lingeri, L. Origoni, A. Magnaghi, M. Terzaghi, 1st prize) research work. It consists of two parts on historical research and design analysis of the building. The example of Fascist architecture in Como region of Italy was analyzed by group work and the work was completed in 2022. Working members: Ma Yimeng, Salman Berkay, Sanguanini Minerva, Seto Aoi, Tomczak Zuzanna Consulting Professors: Chiara Baglione, Matteo Moscatelli Collaborators: Alessandra Ferrari, Fabio Marino, Simone Milani
Beyond Rationalism in Architecture: Casa del Fascio more than a Rationalist/Fascist Building
The period between wars in Italy associated to the Fascism era in Italy, where Rationalism Architecture was born. Terragni's Casa del Fascio which designed and build in this period is a contradictory building which raises a lot of questions regarding the meaning and purpose of an architect and the building itself. Casa del Fascio has different interpretations, readings, texts, and written facts about it. It is the least propagandistic casa of all build ones looking through the building, its function and importantly in a period when it was build. That was the reason that it makes this building so important, and not only in architectural point of view. It can be argued that Terragni was trying to evolve his architecture less propagandistic way by analyzing Casa del Fascio. Although the Terragni described as rationalist architect, rationalists were Fascists indeed, but if we look to another perspective, if they were not in the party, is there any possibility of getting success in the architectural field of that era? However, Modernism without regime could not exist in Italy, at least it did. In this paper, we propose to identify and then examine three main characteristics of that time-period that can make possible to have an understanding about Terragni's Casa del Fascio. The paper will briefly render out the historical context of Italian Rationalism, mostly concerning important points and stress the role of context in Italian Rationalist Architecture. The period of architecture under the regime of fascism would be discussed with the analogy of the journal Quadrante. In fact, the architectural difficulties and complexities in the Fascism period in Italy was a precise measurement of the time for intellectuals working in this period. Terragni's Casa del Fascio will be the analogue of the discussion. It will not be an attempt to restore the Rationalist architects experience as antifascist, however, the analysis of Casa del Fascio bring us to another perspective. Can someone talk about the most important building of Rationalism in Italy, but not mention Fascism? How propaganda played a role of the building's composition? Is it a building of Fascism or just an office building? What is the view about Terragni as an architect, is he a genius modernistic architect or just a servant of the regime? These questions are the main concern while analyzing the Rationalist period in Italy and Casa del Fascio in Como, and the answers are not simple, rather they are complex. Keywords: Rationalism in Architecture, Giuseppe Terragni, Fascism, Casa del Fascio