A civic center and propaganda machine.

Casa del Fascio

… a white building for black skirts.
…its function flaunted its affiliation to an ideology that is rightly hated.
… it was a programme in search of an architecture, in search of a model, an architectural “type”. For Terragni, Mussolini ´s directives called for “organic-ness, clarity, and honesty of construction".
… a propagandistic and liturgical machine within, a political poster without. To this end, Terragni reserved the huge blind wall of its main façade.
… at the end of the room the tables of the law were represented by a marble block four metres high, on which were written the three cardinal virtues: order, authority, justice.
… the central court and the simetry of Venetian palaces are there, the belfry of the towns halls of Lombardy, and even the eclecticism or open-mindedness.
…cost multiplied by three, schedules pushed back over three years, no end to squabbles with suppliers (in particular the marble man).
… how could it be otherwise, pleaded Terragni, working with innovative techniques not yet fixed by the rules of art? It was not so much the concrete skeleton that raised problems as the second day work. Hinges had to be invented for the huge wooden windows (four metres´ span), an electric device for the simultaneous opening of all eighteen entry doors, an infra-shield to protect the main façade, new glass products for the glazing.
… after the war, (1942), was re-named Casa del Popolo

Terragni
...a man capable of transcending as much as it was in his power to do so, the mediocrity of a purely administrative programme.
… an assiduous reader of Le Corbusier.
… the architect whose aim was “to reconcile two aspects of a new order: art and politics”.
…he was one of the most active protagonist in the attempt to define “ an architecture for the State”




From L´ARCHITECTURE D´AUJOURD´HUI, nº 298 avril 1995