During the fascist years in Italy, architecture and politics enjoyed a close alliance. Benito Mussolini used architecture to educate the masses, exploiting its symbolic prowess as a powerful tool for achieving political consensus.
Mussolini, Architect examines Mussolini in Italy from 1922 to 1943 and expands the traditional interpretations of fascism, advancing the claim that Mussolini devised and implemented architecture as a tool capable of determining public behaviour and influencing opinion. Paolo Nicoloso challenges the assertion that Mussolini was of minimal influence on Italian architecture and argues that in fact the fascist leader played a strong role in encouraging civic architectural development in order to reflect the totalitarian values of the period. Drawing on archival documents, Nicoloso lists the architects who gave Mussolini ideas and describes the times when the dictator himself sometimes picked up a pencil and suggested changes.
Examining the political, social, and architectural history of the fascist period, Mussolini, Architect gives careful attention to the final years of fascist rule in order to demonstrate the extent to which Mussolini was intent on shaping Italy and its citizens through architectural projects.
By:
Paolo Nicoloso,
Giulio Einaudi Editore S.p.A.
Translated by:
Sylvia Notini
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 159mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 620g
ISBN: 9781442631045
ISBN 10: 144263104X
Series: Toronto Italian Studies
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 15 July 2022
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One: Travelling to See the Buildings The Myth of the Duce as an Inaugurator Building and Fighting Buildings Built to ""Endure"" In the City Where Fascism Was Born Architects in the Dictator’s Entourage Chapter Two: Mussolini’s Rome The Third Rome Demolishing “with No Holds Barred"" The Alert Eye Visits to Building Sites in Rome Architecture and the Legacy of Fascism Rome, ""Kingdom of the Unexpected"" Rome and Berlin: Parallel Action The North-South Imperial Axis Chapter Three: At Palazzo Venezia The Success of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution Restoring Augustus Doubts about Terragni The Rejection of Brasini’s Grandiose Architecture Mussolini’s Oversights Architecture for a Politics of Domination Ponti’s Suggestions “Rendering unto Caesar What Is Caesar’s” Moretti instead of Piacentini? Chapter Four: In the Architect’s Shoes The Duce Approves The Man with the Diktats With Pencil in Hand Advising the Architects Zigzagging Forward “I’m an Expert on Architecture” Chapter Five: Piacentini and Mussolini The Architect of the Littorian Order A Special Rapport Committed to the Party Side by Side In Praise of Organizational Perseverance Chapter Six: Architecture Towards a Style In Rome’s Città Universitaria “Life Today” Requires a ""Unity of Direction"" in Architecture, Too The E42 and the Matter of Style The Swing Towards Classicism At the E42 “History is Built” Terragni’s Challenge, Pagano’s Silence, Bottai’s Dissent Chapter Seven: The Totalitarian Acceleration and Architecture Architecture for the Myths of the Totalitarian State Piacentini’s Architectural Unity For Imperial Rome The 1941 ""Variante"" of Rome's Urban Development Plan Hitler’s Plan for Imperial Berlin For Imperial Milan A National “Unity of Direction” A Private Monopoly in a Totalitarian Regime Conclusion Index of Names and Subjects Index of Places"
Paolo Nicoloso is an associate professor of architectural history at the University of Trieste. Sylvia Notini is a freelance translator and a professor of English Language, Literature, and Translation at the University of Bologna.
Reviews for Mussolini, Architect: Propaganda and Urban Landscape in Fascist Italy
"""An essential, unique contribution to our understanding of fascist-era Italy's monumental architectural and urban works. Mussolini, Architect shows in detail how Mussolini personally manipulated architecture (and architects) for purposes of political persuasion, by accompanying architects on site visits, altering designs, critiquing plans, and positioning himself (not always incorrectly) as a design expert."" --Mia Fuller, Gladyce Arata Terrill Distinguished Associate Professor of Italian Studies, University of California, Berkeley ""Paolo Nicoloso's carefully researched and provocative book challenges simplistic equations between architecture and politics by interrogating the ways in which Mussolini sought to deploy the material, formal, cultural, and spatial logic of architecture in the making of a modern fascist Italy."" --Lucy M. Maulsby, Professor of Architectural History, Northeastern University ""Nicoloso takes us on a journey through a few of the hallmarks of Mussolini's designs, perhaps reminding all of us that these buildings - appropriately cleansed of fascist attentions - are indeed something to be merited and something to admire. Spread out across the country as they are, beyond the willingness of their creator to imagine a future greater than the past, they speak to the past but address the future in ways that are still unfolding today. Nicoloso got it right in more ways than one."" --Diane Ghirardo, Professor of Architecture and Art History, University of Southern California"
