Marcello Piacentini

Marcello Piacentini (December 8, 1881 – May 19, 1960) was an Italian urban theorist and one of the main proponents of Italian Fascist architecture.

Marcello Piacentini portrayed with the uniform of a member of the Royal Academy of Italy

Biography

Born in Rome, he was the son of architect Pio Piacentini. When he was only 26, he was commissioned to revamp of the historical center of Bergamo (1907); subsequently, he worked in most of Italy, but his best works are those commissioned by the Fascist government in Rome.

Piacentini devised a "simplified neoclassicism" midway between the neo-classicism of the Novecento Italiano group (Gio Ponti and others) and the rationalism of the Gruppo 7 of Giuseppe Terragni, Adalberto Libera and others. His style became a mainstay of Fascist architecture in Rome, including the new university campus (Università di Roma La Sapienza, 1932) and the E.U.R district, of which he was not only designer, but also High Commissar by will of Benito Mussolini. His other works include the renovation of Brescia and Livorno, the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria, the opening of Via della Conciliazione in Rome, and the restoration of the Rome Opera House (1928–1958).

Piacentini became an important colonial architect, particularly in Cyrenaica in Eastern Libya. The style of his buildings is characteristic of the Neo-Moorish period of Italian colonial architecture in Libya in the 1920s. This is evident in his Albergo Italia as well as the Berenice Theatre in Benghazi. Piacentini was made project manager of all Italian building works in Cyrenaica. He was also professor of Urban Planning at La Sapienza, of which he was also president. After the fall of the Fascist regime he did not work as architect for several years. He died in Rome in 1960.

Works

The new campus of Rome University (1935)

File:Newer Jerusalem. Assicurazioni Generali. between 1933 and 1946. matpc.00808.II.jpg

Generali Building

• Potenza, Progetto Ophelia (Ophelia Project), 1910
• Benghazi, Albergo Italia (Italia Hotel, known beforehand as Grande Albergo Roma) 1913 (along with architect Luigi Piccinato)
• Benghazi, Benghazi Central Railway Station, 1916
• Acqui Terme, Villa Ottolenghi, 1920, with Federico d’Amato, later Pietro Porcinai completed the villa and the park.
• Benghazi, Interior of the City Hall, 1925
• Benghazi, Berenice Theatre, 1928
• Bolzano Victory Monument, 1926–1928
• Brescia, Piazza della Vittoria, 1927–1932
• Brescia, Torrione INA, 1930–1932
• Genoa, Arco della Vittoria, 1931
• Jerusalem, Generali Building, 1934–1935
• Reggio Calabria, Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia, 1932–1941
• Rome, church of Sacro Cuore di Cristo Re, 1920–1934
• Rome, restore of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, 1926–1928
• Rome, planning for Sapienza University of Rome campus, 1935
• Rome, Via della Conciliazione, 1936–1950, with Attilio Spaccarelli
• Rome, planning for EUR district, 1938–1942
• Rome, planning for EUR district, 1938–1942
• Rome, Albergo degli Ambasciatori (Via Veneto), 1925–1932
• São Paulo, Matarazzo Building, 1939
• Rome, Teatro Sistina (1946–1949)
• Rome, Cappella universitaria Divina Sapienza (1947–1952)
• Ferrara, Nuovo Palazzo della Ragione (1954–1956)
• Rome, Palazzo dello Sport (1960), in collaboration with Pier Luigi Nervi

References

• Piacentini Marcello. Fascismo - Architettura - Arte / Arte fascista web site

Sources

• Luigi Monzo, trasformismo architettonico – Piacentinis Kirche Sacro Cuore di Cristo Re in Rom im Kontext der kirchenbaulichen Erneuerung im faschistischen Italien, in Kunst und Politik. Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft, 15.2013, pp. 83-100.
• Christine Beese, Marcello Piacentini. Moderner Städtebau in Italien. Berlin 2016.
• Luigi Monzo, Review to Beese, Christine: Marcello Piacentini. Moderner Städtebau in Italien, Berlin 2016. In architectura: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst, 45.2015/1 (published October 2016), pp. 88-91.