ABSTRACT
During the eleven-year reign (1922–1943) of the fascist regime, numerous building projects were realised in Italy. The extensive architectural legacy ranges from individual buildings to extensive urbanistic interventions such as the reshaping of squares, the construction of new city quarters and housing estates and even the planning of entire new cities. Almost no city remained untouched by the interventions of the Mussolini era.
Today, the architectural legacy of fascism is widely accepted and often highly valued. The inner-city neighbourhoods of the regime era with their spacious flats and green spaces are very popular. Monumental buildings such as the Palazzo della Civiltà Romana in the former EUR World Exhibition grounds are celebrated as icons of the Modern Age, without addressing the context in which the buildings were built. Controversies only arise when it comes to dealing with removed or still existing fascist architectural decoration.
This chapter discusses Italy’s particular handling of the legacy of the dictatorship by taking a closer look at its historical development after the end of fascism, both at the level of theoretical reception and at the level of practical handling.
