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The buildings featured in *Future History* are examples of “Razionalismo,” the Italian version of International Style modernism, which emerged in the 1930s. Emerging under Mussolini’s dictatorship, Razionalismo architecture was contemporary and, in its design, often inseparable from official Fascist buildings, now known as the Stile Littorio. Italian fascism and modernism flourished at roughly the same time, a period during which the fascist state embarked on a vast program of infrastructure and institutional construction. Countless projects for the construction of schools, hospitals, roads, railways, housing, government buildings, and urban redevelopment were carried out, many of which are now considered outstanding examples of Rationalism. These projects placed architecture at the service of a state committed to improving health and housing, asserting its power domestically, and colonizing Africa. The photographs in Future History are interspersed with excerpts from a series of articles originally published in 1926 and 1927 by Gruppo 7, a group of architects from the Politecnico di Milano who championed the ideas of Rationalism. This group called for an architectural renewal within victorious Italy, for the development of a new formal language “that would impose a style on other nations, as was the case during the great periods of the past.” The essence of rationalism lay in “truth, logic, order, and Hellenic lucidity—the true essence of this new spirit.”
Kodoji Press, 2013
120 pages
22 x 27 cm
ISBN 978-3-0374-7044-2
The buildings featured in *Future History* are examples of “Razionalismo,” the Italian version of International Style modernism, which emerged in the 1930s. Emerging under Mussolini’s dictatorship, Razionalismo architecture was contemporary and, in its design, often inseparable from official Fascist buildings, now known as the Stile Littorio. Italian fascism and modernism flourished at roughly the same time, a period during which the fascist state embarked on a vast program of infrastructure and institutional construction. Countless projects for the construction of schools, hospitals, roads, railways, housing, government buildings, and urban redevelopment were carried out, many of which are now considered outstanding examples of Rationalism. These projects placed architecture at the service of a state committed to improving health and housing, asserting its power domestically, and colonizing Africa. The photographs in Future History are interspersed with excerpts from a series of articles originally published in 1926 and 1927 by Gruppo 7, a group of architects from the Politecnico di Milano who championed the ideas of Rationalism. This group called for an architectural renewal within victorious Italy, for the development of a new formal language “that would impose a style on other nations, as was the case during the great periods of the past.” The essence of rationalism lay in “truth, logic, order, and Hellenic lucidity—the true essence of this new spirit.”
Kodoji Press, 2013
120 pages
22 x 27 cm
ISBN 978-3-0374-7044-2
