Ricerc@Sapienza

This article is devoted to the Italian modern project of the 1930s, which involved architecture and design. The main theme is the influence that the autarchic economic policy of the Fascist regime had in the choice of materials and technologies, and, above all, the manner in which this choice led to innovative practices and figurative research. Through significant examples, the essay provides some insight into the style of Italian rationalism, whose contradictory aspects—conditioned by the regime’s policy—shaped urban planning, architecture, and design in the 1930s.

Countryside and architecture are rarely presented jointly in discussing advancement and innovation in architectural design and they are usually discussed in different cultural contexts and scholars' specialisations (rationalism, vernacular, neo-realism, picturesque, etc.). Today in Italy and in several other regions globally, the integration of the rural and the urban no longer corresponds to just the close functional connection and spatial complementarity related to production of agricultural goods and city wealth.