The Reception and Congress Building in Rome

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Description

Adalberto Libera was a pioneer of architectural modernity and a die-hard fascist.Unlike the Nazis, Mussolini made an alliance with the modern movement, which became for architecture, the official style of fascism. In 1937, the regime launched one of its most ambitious projects - the E 42. The idea was to create a new monumental city embodying the new Imperial Rome, for the International Exhibition of 1942. Libera won the competition for the Reception and Congress Building. Launched amidst great pomp and circumstance in 1938, the work initially made rapid progress. When Italy entered war, the work pace became sluggish and was abandoned altogether in 1944. The E 42 quarter was to remain a wasteland, until 1950 when the Italian Christian Democrats decided to resume work on it. This film explores the paradoxical alliance between a formal avant-garde movement and a totalitarian ideology. On a more general level, it also explores the link between architecture and power.