ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how some examples of American architecture and planning were passionately debated in Italy during the 1950s, mostly for their rhetorical and propagandistic value and despite their unlikelihood of actually being implemented. The "Italo-American City and Regional Planning and Housing Seminar" was just one of the many transatlantic initiatives launched after the end of the war. The "Italo-American City and Regional Planning and Housing Seminar" was inaugurated on June 21, 1955, in the hall of the Majestic Hotel in Ischia. In spite of the unrealistic correspondence between American and Italian contexts but due to its potential for legitimizing purposes, the case of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) aroused interest of those who campaigned for large-scale operations of land reclamation and social reform in underdeveloped Southern Italy. The information on American projects and plans that circulated in Italy between the end of the war and mid-1950s fostered an intense debate among specialists, leaving a distinctive trace on the disciplinary culture.
