The University city was constructed between 1932 and 1935, under the direction of Marcello Piacentini. It is an important architectonic complex erected in fascist Rome, during the “warm” years of modern architecture, in virtue of the force of its signs and despite renovation works over successive decades. During these years, the rationalists attacked the old generation of architects and proposed themselves at the service of the fascist revolution with the Rational architecture manifesto, submitted to Mussolini in 1931. The same year also saw the inauguration of the 2nd Italian Exhibition of Rational Architecture, featuring the renowned Tavolo degli orrori (Table of horrors), an ironic and disdainful photomontage of official architecture. Also in 1931, the architects' union founded R.A.M.I. (Raggruppamento Architetti Moderni Italiani - Group of Modern Italian Architects). Despite the fiery debate which ensured, plans for the University City were grounded in a spirit of compromise. Piacentini aspired towards the preference of young professionals, with the exception of himself and Foschini, the exclusion of “combative” architects such as Adalberto Libera, Giuseppe Terragni and other exponents of Gruppo 7, and the convergence of different experiences and positions, from Turin and Milan with Giuseppe Pagano, director of “Casabella” and Gio Ponti, director of “Domus”, in Florence with Giovanni Michelucci of the Tuscan Group, author of the winning project of the new station for Florence, in Rome with Pietro Aschieri, Giuseppe Capponi and Gaetano Minnucci of M.I.A.R. (Movimento Italiano per l’Architettura Razionale - Italian Movement for Rationalist Architecture), Arnaldo Foschini, outgoing director of “Architettura”, the magazine of the National Fascist Union of Architects, and Gaetano Rapisardi, his close collaborator. Based on the aforementioned, Mr. Piacentini assigned the design of buildings: the monumental entrance, Hygiene and Orthopaedics to Foschini; Physics to Pagano; Chemistry to Aschieri; Mathematics to Ponti; Biology, Geology and Mineralogy to Michelucci; Law and Political Sciences, Arts and Philosophy to Rapisardi; Botany to Capponi. He assigned himself to the most representative building: the Rectorate. The Dopolavoro (Recreational Association) and Circolo Littorio soon followed, executed by Minnucci, who together with Eugenio Montuori also designed the Barracks for the “Benito Mussolini” University Legion, and the Students' House by Giorgio Calza Bini, Francesco Fariello and Saverio Muratori. Although Piacentini expressly requested that architects renounce principles of originality and fashionable trends, some buildings undoubtedly appear innovative, albeit within limits specified by general criteria. This is certainly the case with the Mathematics building, characterised by the hidden curves of the front façade, in line with those of buildings located in the central square - a connection point of the city planimetry's central axes - from which it distinguishes itself in virtue of its once decorated glass wall, destroyed during the war. An example of “architecture as State Art” can be seen in the Physics building, characterised by the unitary concept of external parts, juxtaposed with interiors exuding a functional freedom of articulation at the building's service. Capponi's building, one of the most state-of-the-art projects, is a full expression of Italian architectonic rationalism in virtue of its great transparencies which break the compactness of masses, creating a communication between the interior and exterior, as well as the balance of vertical and horizontal lines obtained through the glass surfaces of the towers and clerestories.
Several buildings are decorated with frescoes and statues, both in interior and exterior spaces, in accordance with a precise artistic-decorative programme which involved a few well-known artists including Mario Sironi, Arturo Martini, Mirko Basaldella, Fausto Melotti, Corrado Vigni and Alfredo Biagini. Inaugurated on 31st October 1935, the University City is a “place of knowledge”, steeped in the full expression of the relationship between architecture and art.
Text of: Ida Mitrano
