Drinking from the River Lethe: Case del Fascio and the Legacy of Fascism in Postwar Italy

The endurance of a remarkable quantity of buildings constructed during Fascist rule, a consequence in part of Mussolini’s comprehensive public works projects as well as the state’s willingness to fund their completion during the postwar period, has attracted significant attention among historians and preservationists. Many of these buildings are leading examples of Italian modernism, and recent restoration campaigns have fueled new debates about how best to confront the material remains of the nation’s interwar history as well as the preservation of modern architecture in Italy more generally. Fascist Party headquarters—the buildings most intimately identified with Fascism and often designed by young architects influenced by avant-garde modernism—are largely absent from this literature, perhaps in part because of their relative modesty but also because of their continued associations with political power. The relationship between these buildings and the political ambitions of the regime, their use as centers for political activity in the immediate aftermath of Fascism’s collapse, and their transformation in the following decades into military and police headquarters raise questions about how and to what extent the representations of political authority cultivated under Fascism have persisted in the postwar period, and what consequences this has for the study and preservation of modern Italian architecture.