Unneutral Ground

Born in Milan’s troubling Fascist period, one classic Piero Portaluppi villa gets a second life as a contemporary art gallery.

- Nancy Hass

Fascism proved cataclysmic for Italy’s economy and its soul, but it was excellent for its architecture. In the United States, the onset of the Great Depression began a fallow period for good buildings (with the notable exception of those by Frank Lloyd Wright), but the rise of Benito Mussolini between the two world wars had an electrifying effect on Italian design; Mussolini developed strong ties with the burgeoning industrial class, which meant money abounded for both private villas and monumental public works.

As a former Socialist Party functionary, Mussolini knew little of art or edifice. What he had instead was good timing: While he was first gaining power in the 1920s, loyalist journalists like Margherita Sarfatti, who was also one of his mistresses, dreamed up the Modernist-cum- Classical Novecento movement to refresh the style of imperial Rome, envisioning the dictator as a new emperor. Then there was Rationalism, with its uncluttered geometries and robust indigenous materials (locally quarried stone and hand-forged metals) that reflected Mussolini’s Italy-first ethos. At the same time, the International Style was overtaking Europe, its steel-and-glass swagger aligning with the dictator’s muscular nationalism.

Not all Italian architects of the era were Fascist sympathisers, of course, but the movement did herald an unprecedented era of building; corporations, including Pirelli and Fiat, commissioned new headquarters or palazzos. Until the mid-30s at least, when the more grotesque sides of Fascism could no longer be ignored, politics seemed beside the point: Architects knew such creative freedom would not soon come again.