A new book co-edited by Architecture director Stephanie Pilat and professor Kay Bea Jones of Ohio State University examines what has become of the architectural and urban legacy of fascism in Italy.
Mussolini’s government constructed thousands of new buildings across the Italian Peninsula and islands and in colonial territories. From hospitals, post offices and stadia to housing, summer camps, Fascist Party Headquarters, ceremonial spaces, roads, railways and bridges, the physical traces of the regime have a presence in nearly every Italian town.
The Routledge Companion to Italian Fascist Architecture: Reception and Legacy brings together the voices of dozens of scholars from around the world to reflect on the many ways in which the physical legacy of the fascist regime has been transformed. The essays include a rich array of new arguments by both senior and early career scholars from Italy and beyond.
They examine the reception of fascist architecture through studies of destruction and adaptation, debates over reuse, artistic interventions and even routine daily practices, which may slowly alter collective understandings of such places.
Paolo Portoghesi sheds light on the subject from his internal perspective, while Harald Bodenschatz situates Italy among period totalitarian authorities and their symbols across Europe. Section editors including Gibbs College’s own Dr. Francesco Cianfarani, frame, synthesize and moderate essays that explore fascism’s afterlife; how the physical legacy of the regime has been altered and preserved and what it means now.This critical history of interpretations of fascist-era architecture and urban projects broadens our understanding of the relationships among politics, identity, memory and place.
This companion will be of interest to students and scholars in a range of fields, including Italian history, architectural history, cultural studies, visual sociology, political science and art history.
Purchase this volume at the Routledge website.
Gibbs College of Architecture is proud to recognize Petya Stefanoff, who is pursuing her doctorate in the Planning, Design & Construction (PDC) program, has been appointed the new role of Director of Community Development for the City of Shawnee, Oklahoma. She joined the city in 2024.
Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture and Design and director of the Institute for Quality Communities, has received national recognition for her book Model Schools in the Model City. The book has been named a finalist for the 2026 the PROSE Awards.
Gibbs College of Architecture Regional + City Planning Professor of Practice Vanessa Morrison and Associate Professor of Architecture Deborah Richards’ Open Design Collective received top honors at the inaugural BlackSpace Urbanist Collective Studio KIN Pitch Night Competition, held last month in Brooklyn, New York City.
