Italian Modernisms

The studies in this book focus on Italian twentieth-century architecture, in particular design and construction techniques. The descriptions of the worksites and building processes provide a much better and clearer picture of the different modernist styles that existed in Italy; they also reveal the ‘thin red line' that characterised an univocal construction method: mixed masonry enriched (and not replaced) by reinforced concrete – a technique well suited to small artisanal worksites. This was a mild version of modern construction, in line with the role construction played in slowing down an industrialisation process which in Italy was, in itself, slow. Each chapter illustrates a specific aspect of the history of construction and highlights several new issues involving architecture in general: the important tectonic similarities which one way or another link the Littorio style and the several different kinds of rationalisms in the thirties; the continuity between the autarchic experimentation and the techniques used in reconstruction; the connection between the large-scale works designed by engineers and the architectures of the fifties and sixties, which now appear to be one of the mainstays of the unique Italian Style.