L'esportazione dell'esperienza italiana nell'oltremare: studi per la tutela di un patrimonio architettonico

There were at least 125 “new cities” constructed between 1922 and 1943 in Italy: a period in which architecture was given the task of accompanying and narrating the conquests of the regime. Unbridled and relentless, the building programme promoted by the Fascist regime did not limit itself to the “cities of the Duce” but went further: not only spreading to other urban centres of Italy but also going beyond national boundaries and occupying new territories overseas. This paper provides a survey of this field, outlines a work involving both the analysis and the preservation of the architectural heritage overseas and develops the theme of the transfer of experiences to the Dodecanese, Ethiopia and Albania by designers who, in the years of the Fascist regime, also worked in Romagna. These included, on the one hand, local figures such as Arnaldo Fuzzi from Forlì, Guido Savini from Rimini and Giuseppe Vaccaro from Bologna and, on the other, technicians from Rome such as Florestano Di Fausto, Cesare Valle and Cesare Bazzani. These were engineers and architects who left an indelible mark on these territories and who, in so doing, left a new challenge to the contemporary world: that of the transmission of this architectural heritage to the future.