Material Legacies: Italian modernism and the postwar history of case del fascio

Abstract

In recent decades, architectural historians, preservationists, and the general public have shown a growing interest in Fascist-era buildings. Many of the most high-profile examples are those associated with the monumental excesses of the regime. However, new attention has also been focused on more modest buildings that are significant examples of interwar Italian modernism or Rationalism, including former party headquarters (case del fascio). Taking as primary examples works by Giuseppe Terragni, the architect most often associated with Rationalism, as well by Luigi Carlo Danieri and Luigi Vietti, whose interwar contributions to Italian modernism have been less often the focus of scholarly attention, this article traces the postwar histories of case del fascio with the aim of better understanding the ways in which architecture and politics intersect and some of the consequences of this for the contemporary Italian architectural landscape.

Lens to difficult history: Museums of Hansen’s disease in Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan

“…In Asia, in particular, heritage politics plays an influential role in the remembrance and forgetting of the colonial past in order to reflect the post-colonial present. Although scholars argue that such negotiations over memory could be seen as potential turning points in the public realm to stimulate narratives about the significance of difficult pasts and provoke visitors to reflect while creating the “heritage effect,” that is, historic sites with splendor for commendation (Burström and Gelderblom, 2011; Carter, 2020; Macdonald, 2009; Maulsby, 2019), the interpretation of difficult heritage remains problematic and challenging.…”