The 'Casa all'Italiana' and the idea of modern dwelling in fascist Italy

Abstract

This essay deals with issues related to the concept of modern dwelling, conceived in the years of the Fascist regime as a model of political order and as a tool to achieve the modernisation of Italian lifestyle. By the end of the second decade of the twentieth century these issues became the paradigm of all the incongruities in the question of whether Fascism was in its essence traditional and reactionary, or rather a genuinely revolutionary movement. The whole discourse reached its apotheosis when Fascism was widely recognised as a national regime and the dictatorship 'nationalised' Italian social and cultural life. When one considers the kaleidoscopic aspects of the Italian intellectual scene under Fascism, it seems useful to underline that, let alone the various degrees of consensus to the regime, a major obstacle to the affirmation of a coherent practice of modernity was to be found in the inability to solve the problem of the antithesis between nationalism and the international quest for progress. This was eventually the case among well-cultivated, progressive architects, who continued to see their practice dominated by two major concerns, which from time to time diverged and, in the end, reunited: native forms on the one hand and modern process on the other. In its essence the modern was necessarily perceived in opposition to more traditional values deeply rooted in the common patriotism, which served as leitmotiv for Fascist politicians. Italianità or mediterraneità were the two terms most frequently used to describe the formal qualities of a design identified as distinctively Italian.