Rationalist Architecture in Romagna, Italy. Towards Better Preservation

The Santarelli Kindergarten in Forlì and the Casa del Fascio in Predappio, both significant examples of Fascist regime architectures of the 1930s, are comparable for their times of realisation and the year of their inauguration. Beyond their chronology they are inherently linked by many reasons, including their experimental technologies. Indeed the two buildings can be compared both for a common design tension between tradition and innovation and for their construction frailties, deficiencies and failures. On the one hand, the kindergarten in Forlì, a measured building for the “city of the Duce”, employed traditional technologies to resolve its construction failures; it continued to be used for its original function until 2012. On the other hand, the Casa del Fascio constitutes an iconic and monumental building of the Fascist regime era, built for a town which, from periphery status, aimed at becoming a centre. The Casa pursued technological innovation with more perseverance than the Forlì kindergarten but, in the post-war era, fell victim to ideological rejection and a state of physical abandonment. By comparing these two architectures, the paper intends to analyse their affinities and contrasts as well as their shared construction deficiencies and failures. Since both buildings present problems caused by constructive experimentation, the results of the interventions attempting to address these will also be illustrated. The paper intends to delineate an investigation in fieri of this heritage of undeniable patrimonial value while touching on some characterising aspects (including experimental technologies and the theoretical and operational problems of preservation). The objective is, on the one hand, to diffuse a better knowledge of these buildings and, on the other hand, to provide professionals with better restoration tools, capable of guaranteeing the preservation of these frail Modern architectures.