Planning the Past. Rimini and Forlì in the 1920s: The Replanning of Two Squares in Romagna

In the 1920s, the bases of contemporary architecture were being laid in America and in central Europe. Nevertheless, architectural interventions were still closely linked to 19th-century culture. In the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, this phenomenon can be observed in different historical squares: here, restoration works rediscovered, recovered or reinvented the stylistic features of an idealized past. As a matter of fact, squares were an ideal place to bring about and convey new political and moral contents by using that past, whose supposed meaning proved extremely useful for political propaganda and tourism. In Rimini, the destruction caused by the earthquake of 1916 presented a chance to recover the ‘medieval’ appearance of the Town Hall buildings surrounding Piazza Cavour; in Forlì, the Fascist regime redeveloped the Piazza Saffi in a ‘traditional’ way, reviving a glorious past through the restoration work. Starting from the analysis and comparison of these case studies, this article considers the ideological and pragmatic dynamics that led, between the two World Wars, to the partial transformation of these two city centers in Romagna, and investigates the reasons behind this rewriting of the past as well as the relation between the new buildings and their historical context.