Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana

History

The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana was constructed as part of the program of the Esposizione Universale Roma, a large business center and suburban complex, initiated in 1935 by Benito Mussolini for the planned 1942 world exhibition and as a symbol of the Fascist regime. In 1935, Italy requested to host the upcoming world's fair in 1941, however the date was pushed to 1942, the twentieth anniversary of the Fascist Party taking control of Italy, through intentional advertising of the event as E'42. After the world's fair, the area was planned to serve as a center of urbanization that was an extension of Rome, with its area equal in size to Rome's Centro Storico. Design teams proposed different architectural plans for the building; Mussolini ultimately favored the plan designed by architects Giovanni Guerrini, Ernesto Lapadula, and Mario Romano for its rationalism. Construction began in 1938 and finished in 1943. The final plans were revised by Marcello Piacentini, the superintendent of the E42 Architecture Service, who decided to add a travertine exterior to the facade and accentuate the classical features of the design. The structure is also considered one of the most representative examples of fascist architecture at the EUR. The progress of the building was documented through the Fascist newsreel documentary service Istituto Luce, which captured various events including Mussolini planting a tree on the grounds in 1937. The documentation of the progress was a form of publicity and also provided insight into the daily lives of laborers working on the project. The Palazzo was inaugurated on November 30, 1940, as the centerpiece of the Esposizione; one thousand of the workers were laid off by the end of the year. …

Construction

The Palazzo was designed by Guerrini, Lapadula, and Romano, however the plans were modified by engineers and their director, Gaetano Minnucci, who was ultimately able to make any changes he saw fit. The Project Development Office of the Architectural Service, in collaboration with the building contractor, oversaw the logistics of the construction and positioning of the travertine cladding as well as the foundation of the building. Like many other buildings of the EUR district, the Palazzo's materials consist of a concrete foundation and skeleton, clad in travertine, a stone used to give the effect of solid marble.

The Palazzo appears to be entirely made of stone, however its stone facade is reinforced with a concrete skeleton. The stone slabs measure between 55 and 85 cm tall and approximately 210 cm wide; the thickness of the stone slabs vary from 5 to 20 cm throughout the structure with the thickest slabs on the lower floors. The reduction in the thickness of the slabs in the upper floors is meant to accentuate the height of the structure. The impression of the building's height is further enhanced through a slight inward incline in the facade by around 3 cm per floor.

Before the arches could be made, the building required a strong concrete and brick pilaster backbone. The pillars are 120 cm wide on all floors, but the thickness, or depth, of the pillars varies from 193 to 210 cm. Perforated bricks were used to fill the gaps between the pilasters and cladding. To ensure that the structure was well bonded, each slab was anchored with two rod-iron clamps.

After the framework of the structure was secure, the stone arches were anchored to the pilasters with iron clamps. The arches support not only their own weight, but also the weight of the two perforated brick supports, the walls above that fill the gap between the arch and the floor, the wall behind the slabs, and the weight of the cladding of upper arches. The concrete pilasters fortify the force from the weight above and transfers it down, thus the arches along with the pilasters are essential for the Palazzo's structural stability.

Work began on the cladding in 1940 and finished less than a year later. The Palazzo was cleaned and polished upon completion to achieve a smooth, uniform surface throughout, and finally coated with essence of nicotine in water. The uniform structure was not ornamented, emphasizing the fascist architectural ideals.

Design

The EUR provides a large-scale image of how urban Italy might have looked if the Fascist regime had not fallen during the war – large, symmetrical streets and austere buildings of limestone, tuff and marble, in either Stile Littorio (lictor), inspired by ancient Roman architecture, or Rationalism. Its architectural style is often called simplified neoclassicism. Marcello Piacentini, the coordinator of the commission for E42, based it on the Italian Rationalism of Pagano, Libera, and Michelucci.

The design of the "Square Colosseum" was inspired by the Colosseum, and the structure was intended by Benito Mussolini as a celebration of the older Roman landmark. Similar to the Colosseum, the palace has a series of superimposed loggias, shown on the facade as 6 rows of 9 arches each. The number of arches changed several times during the design process and was originally intended to be 8 rows of 13 arches.

The Palazzo is entirely clad in travertine, a characteristic of many buildings in the EUR district. The structure is a parallelepiped, which sits atop a square base (51.6 m by 51.6 m) that stands on a stylobate. Each of the four sides of the building has a height of 57.75 m, which was the largest travertine facade in Italy at the time of construction. Each facade of the building is equipped with six rows of nine symmetrical and identical arches that contribute to the open plan. The architects wanted the building to appear "not as if it were 'clad' in stone, but as if it were actually 'made' of stone." The base covers an area of 8,400 square meters, and the building has a volume of 205,000 cubic meters with a height of 68 meters (50 meters measured from the base).

Atop all four sides of the building runs an inscription taken from a speech that Mussolini delivered on 2 October 1935: "Un popolo di poeti, di artisti, di eroi, di santi, di pensatori, di scienziati, di navigatori, di trasmigratori" ("a nation of poets, of artists, of heroes, of saints, of thinkers, of scientists, of navigators, of migrators"). …