Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T13:23:16.436Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Un'arte ancora in embrione’: international expositions, empire, and the evolution of Fascist architectural design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2020

James J. Fortuna Open the ORCID record for James J. Fortuna [Opens in a new window]
James J. Fortuna*
Affiliation:
School of History, University of St Andrews, UK
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reconsiders the development of Fascist architecture throughout the late interwar period. It pays especial attention to the structures erected for the most significant international expositions held, or planned to be held, between 1933 and 1942, in order to identify significant trends in Party-sponsored design. It argues that the ‘dynamism’ of Fascist design was a consequence of the regime's preference for an increasingly imperial tone which developed in direct proportion to its increasingly imperial identity. It points to Piacentini and Pagano's Italian Pavilion built for the 1937 Paris Exposition, the first national pavilion constructed following the May 1936 proclamation of empire, as a significant flashpoint in the tension between Fascist interpretations of modern and classical design. This article concludes that the often-overlooked world's fair buildings can be viewed as crystalline distillations of the stylistic experimentation which defined the broader Fascist building programme both in Italy and abroad.

Questo articolo riconsidera lo sviluppo dell'architettura fascista durante alla fine del periodo fra le due guerre. Pone particolare attenzione sulle strutture erette in occasione delle più importanti esposizioni internazionali tenute, o pianificate, fra il 1933 ed il 1942, con l'intento di identificare tendenze significative nella progettazione promossa dal Partito. Argomenta che il “dinamismo” dell'architettura fascista era una conseguenza della preferenza del regime per un sempre maggiore tono imperiale che si sviluppò in modo direttamente proporzionale alla sua crescente identità imperiale. Indica il Padiglione italiano di Piacentini e Pagano costruito per l'Esposizione di Parigi del 1937, il primo padiglione nazionale costruito in seguito alla dichiarazione dell'impero nel maggio del 1936, come un significativo punto di rottura nella tensione tra le interpretazioni fasciste della progettazione classica e moderna. Questo articolo conclude che le costruzioni delle fiere internazionali, spesso sottovalutate, possono essere viste come distillati cristallini di sperimentazione stilistica che definiscono il più ampio programma di edificazione fascista, sia in Italia sia all'estero.

Keywords

Fascismarchitectureinternational expositionempiredesignworld's fair
Type
Special Issue
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 25 , Special Issue 4: Italians Beyond Italy/Italy Beyond Italians: Transnational Cultural Strategies and the Construction of Identities , November 2020 , pp. 455 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alfieri, D. and Freddi, L., eds. 1933. Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista. I decennale della marcia su Roma, guida storica. Rome: Partito Nazionale Fascista.Google Scholar
Andreotti, L. 2005. ‘Architecture as Media Event: Mario Sironi and the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolutions, 1932’. Built Environment 31: 9–20.10.2148/benv.31.1.9.62201CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Architettura 1937. ‘L'Edifico dell'Italia all'Esposizione Internationale di Parigi 1937’. May: 243.Google Scholar
Arena, G. 2018. La città 6 dell'E42. Grandi esposizioni nel ventennio. Padua: Sant'Antonio.Google Scholar
Arthurs, J. 2012. Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.10.7591/cornell/9780801449987.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthurs, J. 2018. ‘Bathing in the Spirit of Eternal Rome: The Mostra Augustea della Romanità’. In Brill's Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, edited by Roche, H. and Demetriou, K., 157–77. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Atti del 10 congresso nazionale di storia dell'architettura. 1938. Florence.Google Scholar
Barisione, S. 2013. The Birth of Rome: Five Visions for the Eternal City. Miami: The Wolfsonian–FIU.Google Scholar
Ben-Ghiat, R. 2004. Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922– 1945. Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Beyoğlu 1939. ‘Le Duce a visité les travaux en cours’. 1 March.Google Scholar
Budapesti Hírlap. 1939. ‘A Római Világkiállitás Tervei’. 1 February.Google Scholar
Carter, N. 2019. ‘The Meaning of Monuments: Remembering Italo Balbo in Italy and the United States’. Modern Italy 24: 219–35.10.1017/mit.2019.12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ciucci, G. 2018. ‘The Italian, Soviet Union, and German Pavilions in International Exhibitions, 1925–39’. In Architecture as Propaganda in Twentieth-Century Totalitarian Regimes, edited by Hökerberg, H., 133–65. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
Danesi, S. and Panetta, L., eds. 1976. Il razionalismo e l'architettura in Italia durante il fascismo. Venice: Edizione La Biennale di Venezia.Google Scholar
Devos, R., Ortenberg, A. and Paperny, V.. 2015. Architecture of Great Expositions, 1937–1959: Messages of Peace, Images of War. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Doordan, D. 1983. ‘The Political Content in Italian Architecture during the Fascist Era’. Art Journal 43: 121–31.10.1080/00043249.1983.10792214CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El País 1939. ‘Panorama de la Exposición Universal de 1942 en Roma’. 9 August.Google Scholar
Fiss, K. 2009. Grand Illusion: The Third Reich, the Paris Exposition, and the Cultural Seduction of France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fuller, M. 2006. Moderns Abroad: Architecture, Cities, and Italian Imperialism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ganz, C. 2008. The 1933 Chicago World's Fair: A Century of Progress. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Garofalo, F. and Veresani, L.. 2002. Adalberto Libera. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ghirardo, D. 1980. ‘Italian Architects and Fascist Politics: An Evaluation of the Rationalist's Role in Regime Building’. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 39: 109–27.10.2307/989580CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Il Nuovo Stile Littorio. 1936. Milan: Bertarelli.Google Scholar
Italy at the World's Fair, 1939. 1939. Rome: Vallecchi.Google Scholar
Junyk, I. 2006. ‘The Face of the Nation: State Fetishism and “Métissage” at the Exposition Internationale, Paris 1937’. Grey Room 33: 96–120.10.1162/grey.2006.1.23.96CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kallis, A. 2014. The Third Rome, 1922–43: The Making of the Fascist Capital. London: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137314031CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kallis, A. 2018. ‘Futures Made Present: Architecture, Monument, and the Battle for the “Third Way” in Fascist Italy’. Fascism 7: 45–79.10.1163/22116257-00701004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kargon, R., Fiss, K., Low, M. and Molella, A.. 2015. World's Fairs on the Eve of War: Science Technology & Modernity 1937–1942. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.10.2307/j.ctt18d83c0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Suisse Libérale. 1940. ‘Une matinée sur les chantiers de l'exposition universale de Rome’. 23 August.Google Scholar
Labbé, E. 1938. Paris, Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne 1937: Rapport Général. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.Google Scholar
MacDonald, S. 2006. ‘Words in Stone? Agency and Identity in a Nazi Landscape’. Journal of Material Culture 11: 105–25.10.1177/1359183506063015CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manson, A. 2015. ‘Rationalism and Ruins in Roma Mussoliniana: The 1934 Palazzo del Littorio Competition’. Ph.D. Diss. Columbia University.Google Scholar
Marcello, F. 2009. ‘Giuseppe Pagano: A Rationalist Caught Between Theories and Practices of Fascist Italy’. Architectural Theory Review 8: 96–112.10.1080/13264820309478487CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcello, F. 2015. ‘Italians Do it Better: Fascist Italy's New Brand of Nationalism in the Art and Architecture of the Italian Pavilion, Paris 1937’. In Architecture of Great Expositions, 1937–1959: Messages of Peace, Images of War, edited by Devos, R., Ortenberg, A. and Paperny, V., 51–70. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Marcello, F. 2018. ‘Building the Image of Power: Images of Romanità in the Civic Architecture of Fascist Italy’. In Brill's Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, edited by Roche, H. and Demetriou, K., 325–69. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
McLaren, B. 2006. Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya: An Ambivalent Modernism. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Millon, H. 1965. ‘The Role of History of Architecture in Fascist Italy’. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 24: 53–9.10.2307/988281CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicoloso, P. 2008. Mussolini Architetto. Propaganda e paesaggio urbano nell'Italia fascista. Milan: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Quilici, V. 1981. Adalberto Libera: l'architettura come ideale. Rome: Officina.Google Scholar
Piacentini, M. 1930. Architettura d'oggi. Rome: Paolo Cremonese.Google Scholar
Piacentini, M. 1939. ‘Evoluzione architettonica’. Le Arti 1: 239–40.Google Scholar
Rifkind, D. 2012. The Battle for Modernism: Quadrante and the Politicization of Architectural Discourse in Fascist Italy. Venice: Centro Internazionale di Architettura di Andrea Palladio and Marsillio Editori.Google Scholar
Scarrocchia, S. 1999. Albert Speer e Marcello Piacentini. L'architettura del totaitarismo negli anni Trenta. Milan: Skira.Google Scholar
Schrenck, L. 2007. Building a Century of Progress: The Architecture of Chicago's 1933–34 World's Fair. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Schwäbisch Sonntagspost 1940. ‘Ein Weltforum wächst: ein Friedenswerk mitten im Kriege. Italiens Vorbereitungen zur Weltausstellung in rom’. 27 December.Google Scholar
Scribba, F. 1995. Augustus im Schwarzhemd: Die Mostra Augustea della Romanità in Rom 1937–38. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Stone, M. 1993. ‘Staging Fascism: The Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution’. Journal of Contemporary History 28: 215–43.10.1177/002200949302800202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, M. 1998. The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Swinburne, A.C. 1871. Songs Before Sunrise. London: F.S. Ellis.Google Scholar
Zevi, B. 1950. Storia dell’architettura moderna. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar