Guerrini, La Padula, Romano
Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana

The failing and clumsy character of the EUR complex (ideally intended to host the 1942 Universal Exhibition and later become the new capital of the Empire outside the historical city) can be explained by its most significant building.

During the Fascist era, Italian architecture was engaged in reformulating the languages of the great tradition of the Roman Empire. After (unfortunately) withdrawing its support for Terragni's Rationalism, which reinterpreted tradition with a Modern perspective with notable technical and expressive audacity, Mussolini assigned Piacentini the task of formulating a new Style for the Empire, later defined as Littorio style.

Located at the end of the road axis that cuts through the entire urban intervention, the Palace of Italian Civilization was supposed to ensure a rhetoric that would easily appeal to and engage the masses. The allusion to Romanity was a specific directive of the Regime, and in architectural terms, it translated into the search for expressively recognizable forms.

Strongly inspired by the metaphysical movement and the paintings of De Chirico, the building is a six-story prism wrapped in simplified and easily reproducible arches, smooth surfaces, barely accented cornices, statues depicting heroes and representatives of the Homeland. The stone cladding in favor of cement calls back to Romanity and aligns with the autarkic policies of the Regime. The writings placed on the top of the facades, finally, represent the pinnacle of propaganda rhetoric.

Despite the plays of light and shadow dictated by the arches, the smooth surfaces irradiated by the sun, the perfect geometries and symmetries, the building expresses (or expressed) a monumentality that serves no purpose, empty in its repetitiveness and weak in language. An assembly of forms entirely incapable of provoking any emotion or feeling.

Incomplete due to the outbreak of the War, the Palace underwent various vicissitudes and "vexations" (relative to its intended use) before hosting various entities and offices. Today's glass surface, hidden behind the arches, betrays the original conception even more.