Monumental Architecture from a Troubled Past

Architecture is immensely varied in Italy and spans millennia, from underground Etruscan tombs to Roman temples to Medieval castles, sprawling Renaissance palaces and Liberty-style villas–or Italian Art Nouveau–which lots of decorative wrought iron and stucco details gracing the facade. One architectural movement that was introduced during Mussolini’s dictatorial reign between 1922 and 1943 that you see in many public works projects and residential developments is fascist-style architecture. It’s essentially style that is modernist and rationalist in its approach, meant to exude the power of the state-and even intimidate. One of the most notable examples is just south of Rome’s historical center in a residential and business district called EUR, which translates to Universal Roman Exposition. The sprawl of stately, gleaming white buildings created out of limestone, tuff and marble and draw inspiration from ancient Roman architecture with its mix of arches, porticoes, columns and monuments awes and repels at the same time.

Unfortunately for Mussolini and the project’s builders, the Expo never came to pass because the war came. A number of buildings where actually completed afterwards and today contain offices and a number of museums. Across Italy, you will still see public buildings in a modernist style typical of fascist era. Visible from our home sits a red-brick government building, called Palazzo del Littorio or Casa del Fascio. That name literally means House of the Bundle, a reference to the fascist party symbol as I describe below. Built to house the local party offices in the 1920s, the building has elegant, bold lines, a rising decorative tower and graceful curved windows on one side. If the remaining offices ever close, I would love to it house an artists’ collective featuring local, hand-crafted products, perhaps with even a restaurant ala Eataly and well-furnished bookstore of which we are in dire need in our town. On the next street over from our place, is a massive wall shrine honoring Our Lady of Lourdes, replete with grotto, plastic flowers and a small likeness of Bernadette kneeling in prayer before the Blessed Virgin Mary. Bernadette was born in Portugal in the mid-1850s and claimed to have seen the BVM in a series of visions, which eventually led to her sainthood. The shrine is built into the wall of the recording studio owned by a friend who keeps it clean and orderly for the devout who stop by to leave flowers or to pray. The marble inscription underneath the shrine states it was dedicated in the “fascist year of 1933.” I was told that a local policeman actually used a red marker to retrace the letters so you could better read the inscription. In fact, you do see the red although it is faded. Creepy. Following the war, symbols related to fascism on public buildings were defaced and in some cases literally excised from public monuments; in some cases literally excised from public monuments. On the other side of the pond, in Chicago’s Grant Park is a bronze statue of Columbus (update: it was whisked off in the early morning hours and placed in storage during Lori Lightfoot's administration), also erected in 1933, that sits atop a marble pedestal emblazoned with the fasces, a bound bundle of wood sometimes shown with an ax. The symbol is rooted in Etruscan civilization, passed through Ancient Rome, and became the symbol of Mussolini’s fascist party. To be fair, the fasces also figures in other cultures. In the U.S. the fasces can be found in several government buildings, including in the Oval Office. I still have to scower my town to see if there are other fasces lurking about.