Sin dai primi studi sul cantiere e sul processo costruttivo delle architetture antiche, esempi storicamente ben documentati di età medievale e moderna sono stati presi come riferimento e termine di paragone, al fine di comprendere più approfonditamente l'industria delle costruzioni nell'antica Roma. Questo contributo riflette circa la possibilità di utilizzare due casi di studio parzialmente simili per dimensioni, ubicazione e tecniche costruttive: la Basilica di San Pietro, di età rinascimentale e barocca, in comparazione con l'antico complesso di Domiziano, estensione dei Palazzi Flavi sul Palatino. I primi risultati, che si iscrivono in un progetto di studio sul Complesso domizianeo, aggiungono nuovi elementi alla ricostruzione teorica del cantiere e del ciclo costruttivo. Si analizzano diversi aspetti di questi due progetti architettonici di grandi dimensioni (XXL structures) – la committenza, la forza lavoro, l'approvvigionamento dei materiali da costruzione, l'allestimento del cantiere – evidenziando analogie e differenze, nel tentativo di ovviare alle lacune nella documentazione antica.

Ephemeral architecture was the antithesis of the permanent buildings typical of the ‘Fascism of stone’, and yet many architects took advantage of this paradox to create an imaginary Rome. A widespread use of ephemeral structures was made around 1938, during the Mostra Augustea della Romanità and Hitler's state visit to Italy, in order to support a political programme that marked the totalitarian turn in the Fascist regime after the foundation of the empire and aimed at strengthening the alliance between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Relying on methodologies of particular relevance to Roman art history and on various sources unknown to date, this paper investigates the relationships between ephemeral architecture and romanità. The case study is a monumental tribune built in via dei Trionfi that inevitably suffered a damnatio memoriae: a combination of classicizing and futuristic decorations, it looked back at ancient Rome and, at the same time, highlighted the Fascist regime's aspirations to might and modernity.

The two Anglican churches in Rome by the distinguished nineteenth-century English architect George Edmund Street — St Paul's Within-the-Walls (1872–6), Via Nazionale, and All Saints’ (1880–7), Via del Babuino — are notable examples of High Victorian design. Yet little scholarly attention has been afforded either church, especially All Saints’. This article considers both these buildings not so much as works of architecture but as markers of cultural intent in an environment (and age) fraught with political and religious tension and conflict. It seeks to understand them in the difficult and often fluid context of Risorgimento Italy out of which they emerged, including the city of Rome immediately following its capture by Italian national forces on 20 September 1870. The aim is to establish an interpretation of the two buildings that pays due attention to their political and religious agency. In so doing this article considers closely how architecture was understood as a mediating force in the struggle over politics and identity in the late nineteenth century. In taking a fresh look at the extant archival documentation, alternative possibilities are offered (and revealed) as to how we might further decode the significance of these beguiling if still largely misunderstood works of architecture.

Lodoli's subversive doctrine of truth-to-material was the most original and influential aspect of his approach to architecture. His concept of organic architecture, the main focus of this paper, has been less studied and is accordingly less well understood, although it was an important facet of his design theory. Lodoli applied his novel approach most obviously to the design of furnishings, particularly of chairs, but also extended it to architecture in a project for the refurbishment of the pilgrims’ hostel at San Francesco della Vigna, in Venice, the only instance in which he put his architectural ideas into practice. In Lodoli's thinking, great importance was given to the notion of comfort, and in this respect he shared new concerns common among French architects and furniture makers of the Enlightenment. Indeed, his ideas about architecture and design owe much to the influence of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, truth and universal criticism.

Well into the seventh century, masons in Rome built bonded-masonry walls using materials and techniques directly descended from antiquity. But walls erected starting in the eighth century are very different and distinctively ‘medieval’. The late seventh / early eighth century therefore represents a moment of rapid transition or even rupture in the Roman building industry, when older ways of doing things ceased forever. Drawing on recently excavated structures on the Palatine and at San Paolo fuori le Mura that offer new insights into this crucial transitional period, I suggest that the break with centuries-old building traditions reflects a fundamental shift in mechanisms of patronage, and of control over the city's built environment. After a hiatus in the second half of the seventh century, when the Roman construction industry languished between a Byzantine administration in decline and a Church bureaucracy not yet empowered to supplant it, early eighth-century popes faced the challenge of creating anew the means and methods to build on a substantial scale. The newly excavated structures of the early eighth century offer an unexpected perspective on the growth of, and the growing pains experienced by, Rome's nascent papal government.

This article traces the extraordinary architectural production of the Roman branch of the Istituto Case Popolari (Institute of Public Housing, ICP) during the period between 1925 and 1930. This was the most prolific and creative period in the history of the Institute, delivering a rich portfolio of distinctive public housing projects in and around Rome with modest means and against the backdrop of a severe housing crisis. It was also the period when a single architect, Innocenzo Sabbatini, left his creative mark on the most significant of the Institute's executed projects. Under Sabbatini's creative lead, the ICP sought to advance a distinctive, coherent vision for public housing while also producing a singular architectural language that was both modern and unmistakably ‘situated’ in the traditions and the ambience of Rome. I examine the three arguably most innovative ICP projects of this period bearing Sabbatini's signature: the Albergo Rosso in Garbatella; the so-called Casa del Sole in Tiburtino; and the unrealized Trionfale Nuovo project. Through these three projects, I seek to trace a fascinatingly singular Roman road to architectural modernism that pre-dated the ‘heroic’ phase of razionalismo in Rome during the early 1930s but has been largely redacted from the narratives of modernist architecture.

This paper reassesses the architectural setting of a group of monumental buildings dating to the sixth century bc from the Etruscan area of central Italy, sometimes referred to as palaces, or palazzi. Although scholars traditionally have focused on classifying the buildings, the architectural form is here examined through close comparative analysis of spatial mechanics and movement. Focusing on case-studies from Poggio Civitate (Murlo) and Acquarossa, the author reconstructs the architectural processes of movement, particularly between the exterior and interior spaces arranged around a characteristic courtyard, and concludes that the structures are indicative of a unique Etruscan experience rather than that of Mediterranean palaces more generally. The author calls for a shift away from attempts to categorize these monumental structures in favour of a close analysis of spatial experience in order to explore better their architectural impact and function.