ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the different forms assumed by the Italian–American exchange, in particular technical missions, exchange projects and official bi-lateral initiatives. The postwar years, in fact, were marked by the formation of a number of federal agencies whose intent was to spread propaganda in various regions of the world, in particular where the strength of left-wing movements made American interests vulnerable. United States Information Service (USIS) had begun to be active in Italy even before the complete end of the hostilities, when part of the country was still under the control of the Wermacht. With the beginning of the 1950s, architecture began to be openly and consciously used in several initiatives of cultural diplomacy. The start of this new trend coincided with the constitution by the State Department of the Foreign Buildings Operations (FBO). Of the various effects the Marshall Plan had on transatlantic relations, the intensification of cultural exchange was probably one of the most relevant for architecture.