Plate G1.no13: Palazzo della Civilta Italiana (1937), EUR (Rome)

This building, known as the ‘Square Colosseum’ has long intrigued, and been familiar to me – though I mistook its author, and particularly its era. When I did finally see it, as part of a study trip to Rome with Year 3 students (on the BSc in Architectural Studies degree, University of Strathclyde), I was surprised at just how commanding an edifice it is, more so than I had imagined.
Its setting is within the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR), a development on the outskirts of Rome, initiated by Mussolini as a celebration of twenty years of Fascism. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised, then, by this building’s monumentality……
Putting the politics aside, this building impresses simply by its pure conception. Memory, mind, and eye are drawn to it yet……