Fascist Architecture of Rome

Chances are you didn’t come to Rome to see anything from the last 100 years. For sure, there are plenty of ancient, Renaissance, and Baroque sights to keep the most fastidious of tourists busy, but the Fascist architecture in Rome is fascinating, and as far as we’re concerned, not to be missed. Benito Mussolini thought of himself as a modern Cæsar, and the Fascist regime an imperium for the 20th century and beyond. Il Duce’s architects took their cues from Classical structures still evident in the city of Rome, but reworked the ancient principles of arches, colonnades, and sheer monumentality to achieve an architectural style that could transmit the rhetoric of the regime. Fascist buildings are stark, cold, authoritarian, and unyielding. The message in these spaces is not quite “Welcome to Rome, home of La Dolce Vita.” It’s more like, “If you eat too much pasta or drink too much wine, we’ll behead you and we’ll enjoy it.”

By mixing a little bit of the Fascist period (see back cover for how to get there) into your itinerary of Rome’s more traditional tourist sights, we guarantee you’ll understand that much better how the art and architecture of any particular era have a language all their own. Shape, size, color, and ornamentation all play a part in making up this language and setting a tone of voice. Examples of this building programme are visible here and there throughout the city-in the center at Piazza Augusto Imperatore, where Mussolini planned to have his remains interred alongside the ashes of Rome’s first emperor in the Mausoleum of Augustus.

By far the best exemplar of Fascist architecture in the city is the southern suburb called “EuR,” (Esposizione uniuersale di Roma) where Mussolini sought to shock the world with the brave new Fascist aesthetic. Originally known by the cryptic name “E42,” the neighborhood originated as the grounds for the universal Exposition of Rome, dreamed up in the halcyon days of 1935 by Giuseppe Bottai, the Governor of Rome, as a way to exhibit the glory of Fascism for all the world to see. The show was to open in 1942 (hence E42), twenty years after Mussolini’s March on Rome. Work began in 1938. WWII got in the way of things, and the half-finished EuR was abandoned. During the war it was occupied by, variously, the Germans, Allied troops, and refugee populations, none of which were inclined to treat the neighborhood with any respect whatsoever. After the war, destruction was so great the neighborhood was termed a “modern Pompeii.” City planners decided to clean everything up and start again, and by 1960, when the Olympics were held in Rome, EuR was finally finished.

The voice of Fascism in EuR is authority. These buildings have uninterrupted planes, massive verticals, columns without capitals to relieve the severity of the marble shafts, and materials that are either black or white. Nowhere is this combination of architectural elements more successful in communicating the coldness of the regime than at the Palazzo della Civiltà di Lavoro. Standing alone atop a high, artificial platform, the “Square Colosseum” commands attention and oozes stark austerity. Four statues of Castor and Pollux “guard” the corners of the structure; in true Fascist fashion, the horsemen are shown in the act of beating their recalcitrant steeds. No “horse whisperer,” Mussolini.

To demonstrate the Fascist take on church design, architect Arnaldo Foschini made use of a promontory at the northern end of the EuR quarter to elevate and isolate the basilica of SS Pietro e Paolo. While the dome in Christian architecture traditionally symbolizes the glorious ascent to heaven, the scaly, imposing, grey cupola at St Peter and Paul’s is anything but uplifting. The blockiness of the lower structure is forbidding; clean lines and angles suggest hierarchy of authority.

The stark monumentality of EuR is relieved with a touch of the idyllic at the artificial lake and adjacent gardens, where fitness enthusiasts can pursue such cutting-edge sports as canoe-polo. This enuironment has nurtured Rome’s solitary skyscraper, though this is a lonely success. For the past forty years, urban planners have sought a mate for this poor monster with no luck. Sadly, it would appear that the skyscraper is doomed to extinction in Rome.

While you’re in EuR, make sure you stop in at the Museum of Roman Civilization (for visiting information, see Essentials, p.11), where Mussolini created an exhibition on the development of ancient Rome from archaic times to the end of the Empire. Hugely instructive and interesting, this museum is a great complement to visiting the ruins of Rome. Plus, you’ll be the only one there. Plaster casts of all things Roman in their pristine condition-the Colosseum, aqueducts, siege engines, the spiral frieze of Trajan’s Column, and best of all, a model of the city of Rome (1:25,000 scale) as it appeared in the fourth century AD.

THE FORO ITALICO

The flip side of Fascist architecture is on show on the opposite side of the city from EuR. North of the center and across the Tiber is the Foro Italico (once humbly referred to as the “Foro Mussolini” and opened in 1932 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Mussolini’s March on Rome), a vast sports complex which the Duce developed to promote the Fascist ideal of athleticism. Here, however, the rhetoric of the architecture is a little less compelling. Artists like Cecconi and Balilla took inspiration from such ancient Roman decorative media as mosaic and marble sculpture. The result, while still recognizably Fascist in theme, is campy, and becomes even more comical for its aspirations of austerity.

Hundreds of square meters of black and white mosaic-no color for the Fascists as that would be too “warm”-depict good, fitness-oriented Italians in all manner of athletic activity, from basic calisthenics to  football to advanced gymnastic feats to the all-important exercise of raising your right hand and shouting “DuCE, DuCE, DuCE!”

In the Stadio dei Marmi, 160 statues of tough-looking, scantily-clad sportsmen were realized in Carrara marble, each representing a city of Italy  (Rome is the second from the left in the top row of statues opposite) and holding various athletic apparati, some of which the staff of Enjoy Rome Magazine are at an utter loss to identify.

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