...Mussolini, at least for his first decade in power, wasn’t quite as interested in architecture as his fellow dictators. While enthusiastically censoring film-makers, writers, academics and journalists, he let architects do as they please [...]
The resulting architectural output, between Mussolini’s rise to power in 1922 and the late 1930s, when he began to exert more control, embodies an accidentally healthy pluralism.
— The Guardian
"While Hitler rejoiced in the traditional völkisch kitsch of his imaginary master race, and Stalin revelled in over-iced baroque confections, Mussolini sat back and let historicist revivalism compete with the crisp forms of forward-looking modernism."
For more on the architecture of fascism, check out these links:
10 Comments
We have a close relative in Beverly Hills by Edward Durell Stone.
>>>so-called the Square Colosseum
another variety
I was just in Westwood at UCLA today...
What does the Palazzo della Civilta Italiana have to do with Fascism??? only because was build during Mussolini times doesn't mean that it's a Fascist symbol.
Why is it not a Fascist symbol???
because nobody in italy keeps worshiping assholes and their statues. it's an american only obsession, like peanut butter.
Thanks JLC, I get that. But it's not like it just happened to be built during Mussolini times.
any building can be a symbol of something to anyone - but it's not the building's fault. Besides, there are a few more old buildings in Rome. One is a big symbol.
I would add the Pentagon Building in Washington DC as a kind of Fascist Rat Trap. The kind of military structure that Lewis Mumford called the "Architecture of Threat".
pnpero chicago USA
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