From Modernism and under the Fascist flag of Italian Nation to Post-modernist urban sprawl

This paper was presented during the International conference: ‘Theoretical Currents I: Architecture, Design, and the Nation’.
Theme: ‘Historical Perspectives’. It was presented on 15th September 2010 and published in the Proceedings of Theoretical Currents I in 2010.

In early 20th century, architecture had no place as a national recognised school in Italy. Architects’ professional formation was blended inside the Academies of Arts and just few of them were trained in Engineering Schools of the northern part of the country. There were strict limitations in being creative in design and architecture, because of the tendency to imitate and follow the past, until the strategy of design and architecture changed tune by aligning modernist ideas to a controversial transformation. With the Rationalist Exhibitions of architectural design in the 1930s, architecture acquired the official support and protection of Mussolini himself; the ultra modernist projects of the first students of the newly founded architectural schools of Rome and Florence had an immediate impact to politics in such a way that in the following years modernist architecture became the Nation’s architecture showing up in large scale competitions, such the EUR in Rome and the Railway Station of Florence. The Nation’s architecture had such an influence to policy making that all the planning laws after World War II were based on the first laws in the 1930s and 1940s; the nationalist regime managed to put forward rules and regulations which had to re-format the built environment through the development master plans in the 1950s and beyond.

In early 20th century, architecture had no place as a national recognised school in Italy. Architects’ professional formation was blended inside the Academies of Arts and just few of them were trained in Engineering Schools of the northern part of the country. There were strict limitations in being creative in design and architecture, because of the tendency to imitate and follow the past, until the strategy of design and architecture changed tune by aligning modernist ideas to a controversial transformation.
With the Rationalist Exhibitions of architectural design in the 1930s, architecture acquired the official support and protection of Mussolini himself; the ultra modernist projects of the first students of the newly founded architectural schools of Rome and Florence had an immediate impact to politics in such a way that in the following years modernist architecture became the Nation’s architecture showing up in large scale competitions, such the EUR in Rome and the Railway Station of Florence. The Nation’s architecture had such an influence to policy making that all the planning laws after World War II were based on the first laws in the 1930s and 1940s; the nationalist regime managed to put forward rules and regulations which had to re-format the built environment through the development master plans in the 1950s and beyond.