furnishing the fascist interior: giuseppe terragni, mario radice … article 2006.pdf · casa del...

1 Giuseppe Terragni,Casa del Fascio,Como, 1932–36.35/36 (October 1936)

‘The struggles, conquests, and responsibility for victorycontributed a mystical beauty to the humbleheadquarters, where enthusiasm for the Duce and theheroic blood sacrificed by the enlisted were often thegreatest source of comfort and the most poetic“furnishing”.’1

The political values of Benito Mussolini’s Fascistregime resonated throughout the architecture andfurnishings of Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio(1932-36) in Como [1].2 Every physical detail andspatial relationship in this building is invested withpolitical symbolism. The building represents anexample of interwar modernism in whicharchitecture and furnishings were considered as anintegral whole, both by the architect – whosearchitecture operated in a middle register between

the scales of furniture and urbanism – and bycollaborating artists, for whom constructs andinstallations utilising photomontage acted asmodernist interpretations of the traditional mediaof fresco, bas-relief and mosaic. Furnishings –including furniture, installations and plastic arts –played an integral role in fostering three recurrentthemes throughout Terragni’s project: establishingthe symbolic presence of the Duce; representing thepolitical values of the Party through the use ofmaterials and formal relationships; andconstructing a uniquely Fascist identity, stressingnational (rather than regional) allegiances andemphasising the formation and exploitation of amass identity for the public. This essay considers howthese three themes are physically manifested in thebuilding’s most important interior spaces.

history arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 157

historyBuilding, furniture design and the decorative arts collaborate to

embody Fascist political values and mass identity in an icon of

modern architecture.

Furnishing the Fascist interior: Giuseppe Terragni, Mario Radice and the Casa del FascioDavid Rifkind

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Mass identityThe Casa del Fascio gave concrete expression to theregime’s interest in forming and politicising themasses [2]. As Terragni wrote, ‘The moving quality ofthe work is no longer the rhetorical figure withspade or pick on his shoulder and the sun sinkingbehind him. It resides rather in acknowledging thethousands and thousands of black-shirted citizensamassed in front of the Casa del Fascio to hear thevoice of their leader announce to Italians andforeigners the advent of Empire’.3 Terragni was aleading figure in the intellectual circle thatproduced the journal Quadrante (1933–36). In theOctober 1936 double issue dedicated to the building,he illustrated this passage with a full-page

photomontage depicting the masses standing beforethe Casa del Fascio, listening to a broadcast ofMussolini’s announcement that the Ethiopiancapital, Addis Ababa, had been seized on 5 May 1936.4

Formally, Terragni represented the militarisation ofthe mobilised citizenry with a rank of glass doorsthrough which the masses were to enter the building[3]. The 18 mechanically-operated glass doors openedand closed in soldierly unison at the push of abutton. The crowd then entered the main space ofpublic assembly, the sala per adunate (assembly hall),where banks of floodlights would illuminate themlike parading troops [4]. To the left of the entry thesacrario – dedicated to the four Comaschi Fascists whohad died in the seizure of power – repeated the

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David Rifkind Furnishing the Fascist interior

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Fascist roll-call, ‘presente’, a participatory chant sofamiliar as to elicit an audible response from thereader [5]. Such visceral cues, which ordered themovement of one’s body through space andtriggered memories of mass spectacle, assured theFascist citizen of a collective and martial experienceby the mere act of entering the building, even whenalone.

Just as important as the image of the assembledmasses in front of the building was the physicaltransparency which linked the piazza dell’Imperoand the two-storey sala per adunate – the two mainsites for political assemblies – metaphoricallylinking the populace with the Party.5 The glass doorswhich granted entry to the building rendered thethreshold between the two spaces fully transparent,while the sala per adunate’s opaque north and southboundaries (comprising offices and services) servedto emphasise the visual and processionalrelationship between the hall and the piazza. Thisformal relationship reflected Terragni’s (and mostRationalists’) obsession with Mussolini’smetaphorical characterisation of Fascism’s politicaltransparency. ‘It was necessary,’ wrote Terragni:

‘to study possible access to this vast space by flanked rowsof Fascists and the public for big assemblies, thuseliminating any break in continuity between indoors andoutdoors so that a leader can speak to his followersassembled inside and still be heard by the masses gathered

in the plaza. Thus Mussolini’s concept of fascism as a glasshouse into which everyone can peer gives rise to thisinterpretation […]: no obstacles, no barriers, nothingbetween the political leader and his people.’ 6

On the interior, the visual relationship between thesala per adunate and the direttorio (boardroom) on thefloor above reflected Terragni’s earnest belief thatthe building’s transparency would foster a partyleadership more responsive to the populace. ‘Thisphysical proximity to the people,’ he wrote,‘presupposes that the public can comfortablyapproach the building housing the directors andcommanders of this advanced society’ [6].7 And at themore intimate scale of the custom-designedfurniture, Terragni’s emphasis on a more delicatetectonics ensured that there were no heavy desks tohide behind. ‘The predominant concept in this Casadel Fascio is visibility, with an instinctive verificationbetween public and Federation employees’ [7].8

Terragni also sought to use the decorative arts toproject the regime’s political values and fosterpopular participation in the Fascist project. Hecommissioned9 his long-time friend (and some-timecollaborator) Mario Radice to design a series ofdidactic and rhetorical installations in the building’sprincipal public spaces, the sala per adunate and thedirettorio [8].10 Terragni designed ideologically-charged installations for the most important offices,those of the segretario federale (Fascist party secretary)


Furnishing the Fascist interior David Rifkind

2 Photomontage ofrally on 5 June 1936

3 The building’s frontdoors opened at thepush of a button

4 The sala per adunate(meeting hall)

5 The sacrariodedicated to Como’sfallen Fascists

6 Views into the salaper direttorio(boardroom) fromthe sala per adunate

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and the fascio (the local party chapter), which arestacked vertically above the sacrario and create asequence of secular reliquaries extolling the fascio’srelationship to the national Fascist party (see below).Radice decorated the sala per adunate with abstractpaintings, inscriptions and a photographic effigy ofMussolini, mounted on glass [9]. Throughout thebuilding, Radice and Terragni’s work conflated partyand state history, playing the propagandist role ofcontrolling the transmission and retelling of recentevents, particularly the March on Rome and theinvasion of Ethiopia. The installations also placedspecial emphasis on Como’s role in the Fascist ascent,linking local and national identity as part of the

regime’s project of forging a unified Italian identityto supplant the country’s traditionally regionalcharacter.

Mussolini ever-presentNumerous photographs of Mussolini throughoutthe Casa del Fascio served as the most overt means ofestablishing his symbolic presence, as well asreinforcing his popular representation in a variety ofguises: war hero, statesman, military leader,journalist, and so on. His helmeted visagecommanded the sala per adunate [9], his erect stancepresided in uniform over meetings of the direttorio [8]and his tailored bust kept watch over the segretario



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federale’s shoulder [7]. Terragni and Radice used onlyphotographic representations of Mussolini,emphasising the continuity between modernism(expressed through the techniques of mechanicalreproduction) and tradition (represented by thegenre of portraiture) in the visual arts.11 Radicesimilarly spoke to modern and traditional concernswith his simultaneous use of figuration andgeometric abstraction in the building’s installations,and he exploited the dialectic of traditionalmedia/modern materials in frescoes and bas-reliefsexecuted in concrete, often hovering in front of awall on a light steel frame.12

The Duce’s writings and pronouncements wereinscribed and painted on Radice’s installations in thesala per adunate and the direttorio, so that thebuilding’s walls would literally echo with his words,playing on the public’s familiarity with his speechesthrough the new medium of radio.13 Radice carvedthe Fascist motto ‘Order Authority Justice’ through afour-metre slab of Musso marble, standing behindthe glass-mounted portrait in the sala per adunate.14

The balconies facing piazza dell’Impero, which tookthe place of the customary arrengario (rostrum), werean index of the great orator’s authority [1].15

The subtlest manifestation of the absent dictatortook place beneath the surface of the direttorio’sconference table. Terragni’s drawings for the table, aspublished in Quadrante, show an unrealised footrestat the end of the table occupied by the segretariofederale. But at the head of the table nocorresponding footrest was to be provided. Alongwith the absence of a chair in front of thephotomechanically-etched marble figure ofMussolini, the table’s asymmetry reserved a place forthe Duce.16

Materiality and ideologyA thin sheet of crystal covered the conference table’sthick, polished rosewood surface [8].17 Chromed legsof white copper (an alloy of copper, zinc and nickel)supported the top, and were braced below by roundaluminium tubes, which doubled as footrests.18 Thedrawings reproduced in Quadrante show two squarefigures in the table top which do not appear in therealised design. It is not known what these squares(which appear only in the plan, not in the elevations)represented but, given their similarity in scale andproportion to a series of vitrines in the office of thefascio, it is quite possible that they were intended asshallow display cases cut into the wood, which wouldexhibit political relics beneath the glass surface ofthe table.19 The segretario federale’s desk was made ofthe same materials, while other desks had writingsurfaces of opalescent crystal in white, grey, greenand black. Because of their rich wood substrates, theglazed tops of the desks and tables reflected light butdid not transmit views, much like Terragni’ssophisticated use of reflective finishes throughoutthe building, which served to direct and magnifyspecific visual relationships.20

The Casa del Fascio and its furnishings employedmaterials carefully chosen to symbolise the politicalvalues of the Party, fluctuating between theevocation of the classical past and an enthusiasticembrace of modernity. Fascism’s self-identificationwith the Roman Empire found material expressionin Terragni’s use of marble revetments to clad anexpressed – if not exposed – concrete structure. TheCasa del Fascio’s construction coincided withMussolini’s increasing self-identification withAugustus, the first Roman emperor, and to Terragnithe structure’s ‘classical’ proportions and materialpalette emphasised this historical association. Heargued that the building’s sumptuous finishessuggested the Imperial legacy of grand publicbuildings [10].21

On the other hand, new and advanced materialsused throughout the Casa del Fascio reflected thepolitical symbolism of modern technology, whichrepresented both Fascism’s self-promotion as arevolutionary movement and Mussolini’s project ofbroadly expanding the nation’s industrial capacity[11]. Terragni’s furnishings employed stainless steel,aluminium and new alloys with anti-corrosivefinishes, often provided by manufacturers whosupplied the same materials to Italy’s automotiveand aeronautic industries.22 Non-corroding metalsspoke simultaneously of the Fascist concern with a



7 Office of thesegretario federale

8 The sala per direttorio

9 Blackshirtsassembled in the salaper adunate. Thephotograph ofMussolini is mountedbetween two sheetsof tempered crystal

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mechanised vision of modernity and the desire torepresent the eternal with materials that – literally –would not wear the patina of time. Steel, inparticular, found common use in Mussolini’srhetoric as a trope for combat and struggle – thedictator’s fondness for the sport of fencing being wellpublicised. Aluminium fulfilled the regime’s policyof economic autarchy by exploiting Italy’s extensivebauxite deposits. Above all, the prominent use ofglass in a wide variety of contexts signalled thetechnological advancement of the state. Perhaps themost striking example of this is the single piece ofcrystal – seven metres long, yet only one centimetrethick – used to cover the conference table in thedirettorio [8].23

A similar dialectic between classicism andmodernity marks the use of materials andtechniques in Radice and Terragni’s installations andmurals. Radice’s abstract compositions in thedirettorio are built up of thin layers of wood andplaster that straddle a line between fresco and bas-relief. Here, as in the sala per adunate, Radice collagedphotographic – rather than painted – portraits ofMussolini onto substrates that included marble,concrete and glass. Terragni, too, chose aphotographic portrait of the Duce for the office ofthe segretario federale. This prominent display ofmechanical reproduction reinforced thearchitecture’s emphasis on technological progress asconsistent with, rather than divergent from, theclassical tradition.

In the direttorio, Radice photomechanically etchedMussolini’s image onto a sheet of marble, which headded to the shallow polychrome compositioncovering the room’s east wall. He accompanied theportrait with a quote from the Duce, taken from Il

Popolo d’Italia. Radice also designed the mural on theopposite wall, where a quote from the ‘Doctrine ofFascism’ (describing the party’s role as organiser ofevery aspect of social life) and a stylised fascesreinforced the authority of the segretario federale, whosat before the fresco during board meetings.Together, the two richly decorated end wallscontrasted sharply with the room’s fully glazedlateral walls, one of which surveyed the adjacent salaper adunate from above.

Radice’s paintings and installations also trace linesthrough space, manifesting the tracées regulateurs ofTerragni’s half-classical, half-Corbusian geometry[12]. These lines would otherwise be restricted to theprinted page, and represent the building’ sunderlying geometric order. Radice’s wife, Rosetta,taught mathematics and often discussed thecontemporary work of Matila Ghyka with the localRationalist circle.24 Ghyka’s 1931 book on the goldensection, Le nombre d’or, included the chapter ‘Lescanons géométriques dans l’art méditerranéen’,which Terragni read as a way to link modernarchitecture to classical precedent without recourseto ornamentation.25 The golden section wasparticularly important to Terragni’s work, and thearchitect’s relazione includes detailed descriptions ofthe proportional relationships underlying the Casadel Fascio’s sophisticated composition.26 Sosignificant were these relationships that Terragnivaried the thickness of the concrete’s cladding tomaintain consistent finished dimensionsthroughout the building, even as the columnsdecreased in size at the upper storeys.27 Geometricproportions played as large a role as structuralengineering in dimensioning the building ’sconcrete frame.



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Indeed the Casa del Fascio’s structure was one of its most important formal elements, acting as an organisational matrix which orders theinterior spaces and projects their interrelationshipsonto the building’s highly abstract facades. Itsprominent grid represented both the abstract idealfrom which the Rationalists took their name, andthe gridded street pattern which reflects Como’sRoman origins [13]. Quadrante emphasised therelationship between the grid plan of Como and the concrete structure by juxtaposing two facing pages (6 and 7) in which the former displayed two images of the city (a map and an aerial view) and a plan depicting the Casa delFascio’s relationship to its historical context, while the latter presented seven photographs of the building’s concrete frame during construction[14].28 Engineer Renato Uslenghi designed thereinforced-concrete structure,29 whose materialityalso recalled the Roman legacy of structuralengineering and material innovation. Sergio Porettihas argued that, in response to the internationalsanctions following the 1935 Ethiopian invasion, theCasa del Fascio’s concrete frame came to symbolise aconstruction technology fully consonant with therequirements of the government’s autarchy policy,while earlier, concrete had represented an exampleof an industry integrated within the corporativisteconomy.30 This analysis follows Terragni’s ownaccount of the material’s symbolic role – whichincluded the Roman tradition of concrete structuresclad in stone – but fails to acknowledge the politicalexpediency of such claims. The League of Nationssanctions postdate the structural frame’s erection,and so the architect’s claim of autarchic value seemsopportunistic, at the very least.



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10 The main stair isfinished in marble,glass block andtempered crystal

11 Rear stair glazing

12 Diagram illustratingthe building’sregulating geometry

13 Plan of Como. TheCasa del Fascio is thedark square to the farright, opposite thecathedral

14 Constructionphotographs

Much as Terragni equated the physical transparencyof glass with the political transparency of Fascism, heargued for a ‘moral’ dimension of ‘honestly revealingthe structural elements’.31 Yet Terragni did not revealthe concrete frame by leaving it exposed. While thereare important practical reasons for this choice, hisintention was, above all, symbolic. ‘If,’ he explained,‘for the functional and utilitarian purposes of anoffice building a plaster wall is as good as a marblewall, for the representational nature of a buildingonly the marble wall will do’.32 He assigned differentmarbles to various spaces depending on theirhierarchical importance.33

On the interior, Terragni clad the concrete withseveral varieties of stone, as well as glass and plaster.He carefully positioned reflective, transparent andmatte-finished surfaces to emphasise specific visualrelationships, such as that between the sala peradunate and the piazza. Terragni clad the entryvestibule’s ceiling, floor and certain column faceswith reflective marble and other materials, whichdematerialise the building’s structure andrepeatedly mirror the view of the piazza when seenfrom the sala per adunate. The care with whichTerragni selected materials can also be seen in thebuilding’s exterior cladding, where he employed3016m2 of Botticino calcare after visiting marblequarries in Carrara and Musso.34 Remarkably,Terragni left one column bare;35 this column – in thesegretario federale’s office – is partially encased withina glass vitrine displaying the fascio’s labarum [15].36

The segretario federale was the leader of the fascio,and his office reflected his status as Como’s mostimportant Fascist citizen.37 Among the room’sfurnishings was the ‘glass and black granite shrine’38

exhibiting the fascio’s labarum and other artefactsevoking the display of political relics at the Mostradella Rivoluzione Fascista. The vitrine framed theunplastered column, as if displaying theconstruction of the building itself as an object ofpolitical significance.

ContinuitiesBehind the segretario federale’s elaborate glass-toppeddesk, Terragni installed an open framework of steelwhich carried a series of concrete panels imprintedwith images and inscriptions, ‘dominated,’ as hewrote, ‘by an evocative portrait of the Duce on theend wall which commands the attention of thevisitor’ [7].39 Terragni’s installation presented agraphic history of the Fascist party, and emphasisedthe link between the mobilised masses and acharismatic leader, in the room where the segretariofederale received his most important guests. One floorabove his office (and two storeys above the sacrario)Terragni designed a series of glass and steel displaycases and a wall-mounted mural installation thattransformed the office into a shrine to Luigi (Gigi)Maino, the recently deceased founder of the Comofascio.

Images published in Quadrante emphasised andextended the representation of Mussolini’s presencein Radice’s and Terragni’s installations. Ico Parisi’siconic photograph of the segretario federale’s officeincludes two Olivetti typewriters as representationsof the Duce, in his guise as a journalist and founderof Il Popolo d’Italia [16].40 His portrait on the wall is justvisible to the right, as is its reflection in the glasssurface of the desk.

Parisi’s photograph also emphasises the continuityTerragni sought to draw between Rationalism andpast epochs of Italian architecture. Filippo Juvarra’sbaroque dome (c.1730) atop the duomo dominatesthe segretario federale’s window, while its reflection inhis desk draws the older building into the Casa delFascio, echoing the importance of historicalprecedent in Rationalist discourse. The immediacy ofthe visual relationship between the seats of churchand party power is made possible by the picture’s lowvantage point, which uses the desk surface to edit outthe middle ground of the piazza to pull the moredistant cathedral into the foreground. Thephotograph envelops one typewriter within theduomo’s apse and its reflection, as though poeticallyconflating the sites of sacred and secular scripture.41

Terragni took similar care in framing Como’smountainous landscape, both from within thebuilding and when viewed from the piazza. But the



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15 Office of the segretariofederale. The vitrineencasing the ‘bare’column is to the centreof the room

16 View from the officeof the segretariofederale

most eloquent of elements in this visual allegory ofFascist rhetoric is the single exterior column visibleoutside the segretario federale’s office. As a free-standing pier it illustrates the separation ofstructure and enclosure so important to Terragni’smodernism, while the prominent seam in itsrevetment (an element commonly airbrushed out ofQuadrante’s illustrations) demonstrates therelationship between concrete structure and marblecladding that Terragni cited as a direct link to thetraditions of Roman construction.

Radice’s and Terragni’s murals and installationsreinforced the building’s representational themesthroughout its most important spaces. Terragni’sglass and steel vitrines in the offices of the segretariofederale and the fascio served as secular reliquaries,displaying objects associated with the fascio and itsrelationship to the national party. Many of Radice’sworks featured lengthy, bombastic inscriptions ofMussolini’s pronouncements, which Terragnidescribed (in reference to the direttorio) as ‘a warningfor the servants of Fascism in a position of command’[8].42 The inscriptions of the Duce’s speeches andwritings were printed in a heroic, fully capitalisedtypography that echoed his oratorical style, evokedRoman epigraphs, and almost added an auralcomponent to the celebration of the dictator. Thequotations reinforced the programmatic functionsof the spaces they served and monumentalisedaphorisms that appeared in such ideologicallysignificant venues as the ‘Doctrine of Fascism’ and IlPopolo d’Italia.43 The murals and installations served

three key political roles: they sought to educate eachsuccessive generation of Comaschi about thesacrifices of their ancestors, to remind those whohad made the pilgrimage to Rome of the experienceof the exhibition of the Fascist revolution, and toprevent the party functionaries working in thebuilding from falling into bureaucraticcomplacency.

Anti-sedentary chairsTerragni was particularly adamant that the building,furnishings and decorations ward off bureaucraticossification, the bête noire of Fascism’s ‘continuousrevolution’. ‘A Casa del Fascio,’ he wrote, ‘is not theplace for long hours in vast or commodious waitingrooms. There is no need for bureaucracy.’44

Bureaucracy would have to be avoided despite thebuilding’s administrative and organisationalfunctions, in order to promote the Party’s continualself-renovation: ‘the “changing of the guard” isimaginable only in a severe and anti-bureaucraticatmosphere’.45

Terragni’s furniture designs address this dilemmaby instructing their users’ behaviour.46 The Larianaside chair [17] is comfortably elastic, yet its woodenseat and back are detailed in such a way as todiscourage slouching or lounging, lest the sitter slipbetween the back and seat. This experiential qualityliterally rectifies the user’s carriage, while theLariana’s attenuated verticality formally models theerect posture proper to ‘the servants of Fascism’. TheBenita armchair [18] presents a more vexing



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problem. Intended as a leather-upholstered,cushioned easy chair suitable for important Partyofficials, the Benita had to balance luxuriousnessagainst the Fascist insistence on action overreflection, and struggle instead of comfort. To thisend, Terragni diverged from prominent modern

precedents in seating design by bending the chair’smetal frame to isolate the seat from the back. Theseat’s separate bearing gives it a more powerfulreaction to the sitter’s weight, compared with earlierdesigns by Marcel Breuer and Mart Stam. As with theLariana, the springiness of the coiled tubing propelsthe sitter upward and outward, ready for action.‘Fascism was not the nursling of a doctrinepreviously drafted at a desk,’ Mussolini had alreadydeclared, ‘it was born of the need of action, and wasaction.’47

In designing the furniture for the Casa del Fascio,Terragni showed a desire to adapt the materials andsyntax of modern furniture while distancing it fromits origins in the bourgeois salon. The building andits furnishings share open and expressed structuralframeworks and unornamented surfaces ofsumptuous materials; they are simultaneouslyfunctional and expressive of functionality. Much likeother modern furniture designs, Terragni’s chairs,desks and tables used contrasting materials todifferentiate between their structural armatures andtheir finished surfaces. This dialectic between themetal supports and the sitting or writing surfaces ofglass, wood and leather mirrored modernarchitecture’s clear distinction between structuralframe and enclosing surface, a dialectic manifestedin the principal facade of (and indeed throughout)the Casa del Fascio. Similarly, Radice and Terragni’sinstallations often excised the bas-relief and frescofrom their traditional place on (or in) the building’swalls, separating the representational surfaces of thevisual arts from the enclosing surfaces of thearchitecture, a distinction maintained by light steelframes of a dimension similar to the furniture’smetal supports.48 The furniture, decorative arts andarchitecture share a sculptural sensibility thatcontrasts delicacy with solidity, transparency withopacity, and sumptuousness with austerity.

While the polished surfaces of the building’sinterior reflect Terragni’s belief that the Partyheadquarters should be appropriately luxurious,they did not invite one’s touch in the same way as theBenita’s leather cushions. Terragni’s furniture thusdoes something his architecture cannot do – itexpresses sensuality. The sinuous lines of the Benitaand Lariana chairs curve through the crystallineatmosphere of the Casa del Fascio, dancing likeserpents against the orthogonal backdrop of thebuilding’s rigid geometry. Terragni’s seating designscomprise the most intimately sensuous moments ina building whose rich experiential qualities areessential to its function as a place of ritualparticipation in the rites of fascism.

Ritual and memoryOf all the places in which the Casa del Fasciocelebrated the rituals of Fascism, the most solemnwas the sacrario, a secular shrine to the four Comonatives who died in the Fascist seizure of power in1922 [5]. Terragni called the sacrario ‘the spiritualand ceremonial centre of the entire building’, andlocated it in a processional intersection orientedtoward both the front entry and the main stair,



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17 Lariana chair

18 Benita chair

where it greeted every visitor entering or exiting theCasa del Fascio. ‘The black marble ceiling in thefoyer,’ Terragni testified, ‘is an important decorativeelement and prepares the visitor for the religiousdevotion of the sanctuary made of three monolithicred granite walls on the left side of the foyer.’49 Thesacrario’s massiveness, ‘which may recall theprimitive religious or regal constructions of ancientMycene or Egypt’,50 contrasted with the gracefultectonics that characterise the rest of the building.This site of personal and collective remembranceresembled an abstract chapel and anchored thelight-filled ‘house of glass’ with a dark, lithic core.

Like Radice and Terragni’s installations, the sacrariowas intended as a permanent memento of theextraordinary spectacle of the Mostra dellaRivoluzione Fascista (Exhibition of the FascistRevolution).51 Fascism’s decennial celebration hadattracted nearly four million visitors to Rome’sPalazzo degli Esposizioni over the course of twoyears, beginning in 1932, and was intended (by 1934)to be a permanent part of the Party’s new Romeheadquarters, the Palazzo del Littorio (LictoralPalace). All of the rooms at the Mostra dellaRivoluzione Fascista displayed relics and souvenirssubmitted by citizens from throughout the country.Terragni designed one of its most memorable spaces,a room dedicated to the nine months immediatelypreceding the Fascist seizure of power in October1922 [19].52 Called Sala O, Terragni’s design featuredlarge photomontages of massed crowds anddisembodied hands raised in the Fascist salute.Similar images of mass demonstrations appear inthe Casa del Fascio (especially Terragni’s didacticinstallation behind the segretario federale’s desk) andin the most memorable image reproduced in theQuadrante monographical issue: the photomontageof the ‘oceanic’53 crowd assembled for theproclamation of empire, broadcast throughloudspeakers on case del fascio throughout thecountry, and quoted on the panels lining the walls ofthe sala per adunate. The dynamism of Sala O, alongwith its large-scale use of photomechanicalreproduction, displays the influence of RussianConstructivism, particularly the work of El Lissitzkyand Gustav Klutsis.54 The exhibition culminated inAdalberto Libera and Antonio Valente’s solemnSacrario dei Martiri (Room of Martyrs), a martyriumcentred on an enormous metal crucifix inscribed‘PER LA PATRIA IMMORTALE’ (‘for the immortalfatherland’) [20]. The Sala dei Martiri frequentlyappeared in the popular press – like Libera andMario De Renzi’s enormous fasces constructed infront of the exhibition hall, it served as an iconicimage of the exhibition – and Terragni montaged aphotograph of the room into the installation behindthe segretario federale’s desk.

The Casa del Fascio related to the Mostra dellaRivoluzione Fascista much like the city’s Duomo didto the Vatican. If the exhibition and its anticipatedhome in the Palazzo del Littorio comprised the newpilgrimage sites at the heart of the secular religion ofFascism, then the Casa del Fascio was the provincialnexus for commemorating Como’s connection to the



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19 Giuseppe Terragni,Sala O of the Mostradella RivoluzioneFascista, Rome, 1932

20 Adalberto Libera andAntonio Valente,‘Sacrario dei Martiri’of the Mostra dellaRivoluzione Fascista,Rome, 1932

Notes1. Giuseppe Terragni, ‘La costruzione

della Casa del Fascio di Como’,Quadrante, 35/36 (October 1936),5–27. Terragni’s relazione, oraccount of the building’s designand construction, appears intranslation in ThomasSchumacher, Surface and Symbol:Giuseppe Terragni and the Architectureof Italian Rationalism, trans. byDebra Dolinski (New York:Princeton Architectural Press,1991). All quotes from Terragni’srelazione are taken from Surface andSymbol.

2. This article is indebted tonumerous writings that haveconsidered the politicalsymbolism of the Casa del Fascio,including Schumacher, Surface andSymbol. A landmark revision of theideological content of Terragni’swork can be found in DianeGhirardo, ‘Italian Architects andFascist Politics: An Evaluation ofthe Rationalist’s Role in RegimeBuilding’, The Journal of the Society ofArchitectural Historians, Vol. 39, No. 2. (May 1980), pp. 109–27. Inaddition to Schumacher’simportant study of Terragni,significant analyses of thearchitect’s work are collected inGiorgio Ciucci, ed., GiuseppeTerragni: Opera completa (Milan:Electa, 1996). Richard Etlinpresents an extensive and well-researched analysis of the Casa delFascio in Richard Etlin, Modernismin Italian Architecture, 1890–1940(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991): pp. 377–568.

3. Terragni, p. 151. 4. Quadrante, 35/36 (October 1936),

p. 19. The photograph has beenmanipulated to slightly augmentthe crowd and, more tellingly, toremove an enormous banner withMussolini’s portrait from theblank wall facing the piazza [Fig. 2].

5. The most spectacular venue formass rallies was in the piazzadell’Impero in front of the Casa delFascio. Balconies on the upper

three storeys accommodated theparty officials (gerarchi) whoseaddresses to the assembled masseswere modelled on those ofMussolini. Terragni planned thebuilding to host three scales ofrallies, ranging from smalleraudiences within the atrium toenormous crowds filling thepiazza between the Casa del Fascioand the Duomo. Schumacher, pp. 159–60.

6. Terragni, p. 143.7. Terragni continued, ‘The fact of

seeing what goes on inside is thehighest distinction for a Casaconstructed for the people, asopposed to a palace, a barracks, ora bank’. Terragni, p. 143.

8. Terragni, p. 147.9. Terragni formally invited Radice

in a letter of 11 March 1935, butRadice was already at work on thedecorations in 1934. Radicereceived the official commission toexecute the work in February 1936,at which point he presented themayor (but not the segretariofederale, it seems) with his writtenrelazione, copies of the designs anda cost estimate for the work.Luciano Caramel, Radice: catalogogenerale (Milan: Electa, 2002), p. 119.

10. Radice had earlier collaboratedwith Terragni and a team ofarchitects from Como on theHouse for an Artist on a Lake, atemporary pavilion built at the1933 Milan Triennale. Radicecontributed two figurativefrescoes. Luciano Caramel arguesthat Radice was strangely resistantto abstraction until his work onthe Casa del Fascio. Caramel, pp. 12–13.

11. Painter and designer MarcelloNizzoli, another member of theQuadrante circle who hadcollaborated on the House on aLake for an Artist at the 1933Triennale, prepared two designsfor a series of exterior decorationsfacing the piazza dell’Impero, withTerragni and historian EnricoArrigotti. Comprisingphotomontages printed on

enamelled steel panels, thedecorations featured portraits ofMussolini and imagesrepresenting Fascist party history.One set of panels was executed, butnever installed, and is nowdisplayed at the Musei Civici inComo. See Diane Ghirardo,‘Politics of a Masterpiece: TheVicenda of the Decoration of theFacade of the Casa del Fascio,Como, 1936–39’, The Art Bulletin,Vol. 62, No. 3 (September 1980),466–78.

12. Dennis Doordan notes otherinstances of a dialectic betweenmodernity and tradition at theCasa del Fascio, including theidiosyncratic fenestration of themain (west) facade. DennisDoordan, Building Modern Italy:Italian Architecture, 1914–1936 (NewYork: Princeton ArchitecturalPress, 1988), pp. 129–42. See alsoEtlin.

13. Philip V. Cannistraro, ‘Radio inFascist Italy’, Journal of EuropeanStudies, 2 (1972). Radios weredistributed to civic centresthroughout the country toencourage the public to listen toMussolini’s speeches, and as atangible sign of the country’sprogressive modernisation.

14. ‘ORDINE AUTORITA GIUSTIZIA.’ The marble slab measured 4200 x1200 x 200mm, and was inscribedwith 500mm high words. By thetime Radice published his relazioneabout the interior decorations inQuadrante, Nizzoli had alreadydesigned a set of exteriordecorations that includedMussolini’s other motto, credere,obbedire, combattere (believe, obey,fight). Radice mounted thephotograph of Mussolini – printedin indelible coloured inks on athin sheet of metal – between twopanels of Securit tempered crystal, measuring 1900 x2100mm. Radice, p. 33, andCaramel, pp. 346–7.

15. Terragni was part of a team thatproduced a premiated (butunrealised) design in the 1934

Fascist National Party. Even their addresses, onRome’s via dell’Impero and Como’s piazzadell’Impero, bespoke this association. The Casa delFascio’s installations and sacrario evoked the powerand memory of the exhibition in Rome as part of abroad effort to shape and instill a shared Fascistidentity, as mandated by the regime.

At the time of its completion, the building waspromoted by its partisans as the seminalachievement of Italian Rationalism, and its richlysymbolic architecture and furnishings were

presented as a model for future construction.Terragni’s building is emblematic of a movementthat witnessed intense collaboration betweenarchitecture and the decorative arts, and which sawarchitects engage the urban context with the newlanguage of international modernism. From themicrocosmic scale of furniture to the macrocosmicscale of the metropolis, the Casa del Fascioinculcated the citizenry of Como with the politicalvalues of the Party and modelled a new mass identity,mobilised in service to an ever-present Duce.





34. Poretti, p. 60.35. Centro Studi Giuseppe Terragni,

drawing 23.146.C8.D.L.36. A labarum was a banner that

carried the insignia of a Fascistorganisation, recalling themilitary standards carried inprocessions in front of Romanemperors.

37. For a detailed description of thestrained relationship betweenTerragni and Ernesto Carugati, thesegretario federale of the Comofascio, see Ghirardo, ‘Politics of aMasterpiece’.

38. Terragni, p. 157.39. Ibid.40. One of the typewriters was

montaged into the image forpublication, possibly in gratitudefor Olivetti’s support of Quadrante.The model shown is Olivetti’s firstportable typewriter, the MP1,designed by engineer AldoMagnelli and first produced in1932.

41. Kenneth Frampton offers aprovocative analysis of thisrelationship. Kenneth Frampton,‘Photography and its Influence onArchitecture’ Perspecta, no. 22(1986), 38–41.

42. Terragni, p. 158. This specific text,on the main mural in thedirettorio, was taken from theinaugural issue of Il Popolo d’Italia,founded by Mussolini on 15November 1914. Mario Radice, ‘Le decorazioni’, Quadrante 35/36(October 1936), p. 33.

43. The mural on the rear (west) wallof the direttorio features a quotefrom the ‘Doctrine of Fascism’,written by philosopher GiovanniGentile but published aboveMussolini’s signature in theEnciclopedia Italiana (1932).

44. Terragni, p. 147. Terragni’slanguage evokes a passage fromthe ‘Doctrine of Fascism’,‘Therefore life, as conceived of bythe Fascist, is serious, austere, andreligious; all its manifestations arepoised in a world sustained bymoral forces and subject tospiritual responsibilities. TheFascist disdains an “easy” life.’

45. ‘A party headquarters such as thishas the job of organization, ofpropaganda, and of political andsocial education. But it is not abureaucratic structure, ahandsome and commodiouspalazzo for offices.’ Terragni, p. 152.

46. Terragni, p. 153.47. Terragni furnished his next major

project, the Sant’Elia nurseryschool (1934–37), with toddler-scaled versions of the Larianachair (teachers used the adultmodel, while the school’s directormerited the Benita arm chair).

competition for the Palazzo delLittorio, the Fascist Party’sproposed headquarters in Rome,that featured an arengario juttingforth through a massive,porphyry-clad screen wallinscribed with lines recordingisostatic forces in a manner meantto suggest the physical power ofthe Duce’s oration. Schumacher, p. 180.

16. Schumacher has likened thisrelationship to the genre of LastSupper paintings, whichmetaphorically brought Christinto monastic refectories.Schumacher, p. 163.

17. For the direttorio, Radice designed alarge, sculptural ceiling lightfixture whose dimensions (7000 x3500mm) matched those of thetable below, and was fabricatedfrom black sheet metal, glass andneon. The fixture was installedafter Quadrante’s publication inOctober 1936, and was removed inthe 1970s. Caramel, pp. 347–8.

18. Quadrante, 35/36 (October 1936), p. 51.

19. Centro Studi Giuseppe Terragni,Como, drawing 23.033.F2.D.L.

20. I am particularly indebted to LucyMaulsby for her observations onthe Casa del Fascio’s carefullystaged visual relationships.

21. The theme of luxurious claddingmaterials as a moderninterpretation of traditionalconstruction techniques wastaken up in the 1926–27 Gruppo 7manifesto, which Terragni co-authored. In the 1934 competitionproject for the Palazzo del Littorio,Terragni’s team sought torepresent the Imperial past andfuture of Rome in part throughthe prominent use of porphyry, amaterial associated with theRoman conquest of Egypt.Schumacher, p. 183.

22. Rafaella Crespi notes that Terragniconstantly looked to foreigndevelopments in materialsresearch. In the margins of one ofhis sketches related to the Casa delFascio, Terragni wrote, ‘nuovomateriale americano da chiedere aNizzoli’, which Crespi believesreferred to Formica, which was atthat point unknown in Italy.Rafaella Crespi, Giuseppe TerragniDesigner (Milan: Franco Angeli,1983), p. 48.

23. ‘Why not recall the workers’, andmy, excited exultations whenthose exemplary sheets of thickcrystal were set into the stairparapet, or the truly incrediblecrystal which is the table surfacein the Director’s salon? Or whenwe opened the main entry door forthe first time by simply pushing abutton?’, Terragni, pp. 150–1.

24. Silvia Danesi, ‘Aporiedell’architettura italiana inperioda fascista – mediterraneità epurismo’, Il Razionalimo eL’Architettura In Italia Durante ilFascismo (Venice: Biennale diVenezia, 1976), p. 24. LucianoCaramel expands on RosettaRadice’s interest in Ghyka inLuciano Caramel, Radice: catalogogenerale.

25. Danesi. Danesi refers to the 1935(6th) edition of Ghyka’s text, butthe chapter on geometry inMediterranean art was alreadyincluded in the original 1931edition. Ghyka, Le nombre d’or, riteset rythmes phytagoriciens dans ledéveloppement de la civilisationoccidentale (Paris: Gallimard, 1931).

26. Reyner Banham described the west(principal) facade as ‘amonumental diagram of the rulesof divina proporzione immortalisedin marble’. Reyner Banham, TheAge of the Masters, A Personal View ofModern Architecture (New York:Harper and Row, 1975), p. 93.Quoted in Thomas Schumacher,Giuseppe Terragni: Casa del Fascio,Como, Italy, 1932–36; Asilo InfantileAntonio Sant’Elia, Como, Italy, 1936–37(Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita Tokyo, 1994),unpaginated.

27. Centro Studi Giuseppe Terragni,drawing 23.26.E1.D.L. The groundfloor concrete columns are400mm square, reducing to350mm on the primo piano and300mm on the upper floors, whilethe perimeter piers arerectangular in plan. The columnsmaintain a consistent finisheddimension by varying thethickness of their stone or plasterrevetment.

28. See also Etlin, pp. 470–1.29. Terragni, 149. Uslenghi had

collaborated with Terragni and sixothers under the rubric CM8(Piero Bottoni, Cesare Cattaneo,Luigi Dodi, Gabriele Giussani,Pietro Lingeri, and Mario Pucci) onthe 1934 urban designcompetition for Como.

30. Sergio Poretti, La Casa del Fascio diComo (Roma: Carocci, 1998), p. 51.Terragni made special mention ofthe companies that continued toprovide materials andmanufactured elementsthroughout the ‘economic siege’of the League of Nations sanctions.Terragni, p. 150.

31. Terragni, 157. Elsewhere he wrote,‘“Fascism is a glass house”, Il Ducedeclares, indicating and markingin the figurative sense the organic,clear, and honest qualities of theconstruction’. Terragni, p. 153.

32. Terragni, pp. 144–145.33. Terragni, ‘I marmi’, Quadrante,

35/36 (October 1936), p. 51.

‘The Asilo Sant’Elia is a glass houseof learning,’ writes ThomasSchumacher, ‘just as the Casa delFascio is a glass house of Fascism.’The process of instructingbehaviour through furnishingsand architecture was thusextended to the earliest years ofthe Fascist citizen’s life.Schumacher, Giuseppe Terragni:Casa del Fascio, Como, Italy, 1932–36;Asilo Infantile Antonio Sant’Elia, Como,Italy, 1936–37.

48. An earlier example of an openspiral kind of self-springing chair(as opposed to the Breuer/Stam-type S-curve chairs) was designedby Gigi Chessa and Umberto Cuzzifor the Bar Fiorina (Torino,1931–32). Anty Pansera, ed. FlessibiliSplendori: I mobili in tubolaremetallico. Il caso Columbus (Milan:Electa, 1998), p. 73.

49. Terragni, p. 157. 50. Terragni, ‘I marmi’, Quadrante,

35/36 (October 1936), p. 52.51. On the Mostra della Rivoluzione

Fascista, see Marla Stone, ‘StagingFascism: The Exhibition of theFascist Revolution’, Journal ofContemporary History, vol. 28 (1993),pp. 215–43; Richard Etlin,Modernism in Italian Architecture,1890–1940 (Cambridge: MIT Press,1991), pp. 407–17; Giorgio Ciucci,

‘L’ Autorappresentation delFascismo: La Mostra del decennaledella marcia du Roma’, Rassegna diArchitettura 10 (June 1982), pp.48–55; Diane Ghirardo, ‘Architects,Exhibitions and the Politics ofCulture in Fascist Italy’, Journal ofArchitectural Education 45, 2(February 1992), 67–75; LiberoAndreotti, ‘The Aesthetics of War:The Exhibition of the FascistRevolution’, Journal of ArchitecturalEducation 45, 2 (February 1992),76–86; Jeffrey T. Schnapp, ‘EpicDemonstrations’, in RichardGolsan, ed., Fascism Aesthetics andCulture (Hanover, NH: UniversityPress of New England, 1992). Theexhibition catalogue is DinoAlfieri and Luigi Freddi, Mostradella Rivoluzione Fascista: Guidastorica (Rome: Partito NazionaleFascista, 1933).

52. Caramel believes that Radiceassisted Terragni and Nizzoli ontheir respective installations at theMostra della Rivoluzione Fascista,based on a letter from Nizzoliconserved in the Radice archives.Caramel, p. 119.

53. Jeffrey Schnapp discusses therepresentation of massed crowdsand their propagandisticimportance in Jeffrey T. Schnapp,‘The Mass Panorama’,

Modernism/modernity, 9, 2,pp. 243–81.

54. Schumacher, pp. 172–3.

Illustration creditsarq gratefully acknowledges: Centro Studi Giuseppe Terragni in

Como and Quadrante, 35/36(October 1936), 1–18

Dino Alfieri and Luigi Freddi, eds.Mostra della rivoluzione fascista.Guida storica (Rome: PartitoNazionale Fascista, 1933), 19–20

BiographyDavid Rifkind teaches in theDepartment of Architectural Historyat the University of Virginia School ofArchitecture. He recently completedhis dissertation, Quadrante and thePoliticization of Architectural Discourse inFascist Italy, at Columbia University. Apractising architect, he is a graduateof McGill University’s programme inarchitectural history and theory andthe Boston Architectural Center.

Author’s addressDavid RifkindUniversity of Virginia School of ArchitectureCampbell HallCharlottesville, VA [email protected]



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