ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the modifications in domestic life and housing design that occurred between the second half of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s as examples of successful dissemination in Italy of US-originated architectural models. The domestic space became the battleground over the competing promises of United States' capitalism and Soviet Communism and the place of intercession between new and old moral values. In the 15 years following the end of the war, Italy underwent dramatic social and economic change. Efforts to reconcile the modernization of the domestic sphere and its cultural resistance were of course difficult and demanding: indeed, this contradiction eventually spurred the radicalization of Italian architectural culture in the following decade. The potential impact of the Cornell kitchen on Italian users seemed to matter little to the magazine's reviewer: the rejection was articulated in the name of differences in production culture.
