The impact of legal and institutional norms on modern developments in the building industry in Fascist Italy in the 1920s and 1930s.
The dissertation project deals with the legal and institutional changes in modern construction production in Italy between 1922 and 1939. Particular attention is paid to the ideological conformity between politics and experts, which the Fascist regime sought to achieve in the construction industry by establishing new legal regulations and the corresponding institutional network clusters. The research focus thus goes beyond classical architectural-historical analyses and is directed towards the field of tension between professional practice and the political-ideological motives behind it, which determined the discourses on professional regulations and chamber memberships. The focus is on the normative conditions within which modern architecture was able to develop in Italy in the first place. Beyond directive interventions, the procedures and mechanisms used for this purpose are identified, through which the construction industry was not only modernized in its work processes, practices and trends, but also politicized at the same time. Structural changes in the institutions, such as the establishment of new syndicates and other semi-public bodies, have not only driven modernization in the building industry but have also had a decisive and lasting impact on Italy’s building culture as a whole.
In addition to classical architectural-historical analyses, descriptive planning-ethical research methods are applied, which enable an expansion of today’s reception of architectural modernism in Italy. The linguistically and culturally heterogeneous border regions of Trentino and South Tyrol/Alto Adige represent a particularly suitable field of research. Since the seizure of power by the Partito Nazionale Fascista in 1922, they have played a key role in the nationalization and ideological ‘fascization’ of Italy. They were particularly interested in the influence and appropriation of ‘foreign’ elements. In the course of the 1920s and 1930s, both regions became a kind of experimental laboratory for testing a totalitarian policy of enforcement. The efforts served not only to transform the nation-state but also to transform political and ideological power, which was subsequently extended to other regions and colonies in Italy. Based on studies of the planning processes of major public construction projects, such as the redesign of the two railroad station areas in Bolzano/Bozen (1927-28) and Trento/Trient (1933-36), strategic procedures and their normative mechanisms are worked out, thus addressing the new formative normality that continued to influence modern architecture in Italy even after the ideological change of power in 1945.
Project pictures
