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“The Citadel of Culture”: The Italian Academy’s Unrealized Urban Plan to Redevelop Rome’s Lungara District
Beckmann, Matthew
Beckmann, Matthew
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Abstract
"The Reale Accademia d’Italia (the Royal Academy of Italy) was an Italian Fascist national cultural institution with the mission of reshaping the Italian intelligentsia’s cultural and scientific production to the Fascist regime’s needs. The Italian Academy was headquartered in Rome’s Villa Farnesina, a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture located on Via della Lungara. The Italian Academy’s unrealized 1939 proposal to redevelop the entire Lungara district shows a desire to ‘reframe’ the Villa Farnesina and aggrandize the Academy’s physical position within the urban layout of Rome. The plan would have replaced the Regina Coeli prison with a monumental access route to the crest of the Janiculum. It would have created a visual and transportation connection between the secular “sacred area” of Garibaldini monuments atop the Janiculum and Rome’s bustling city center.Since the 1870’s Italian city planners had eyed the Lungara district for redevelopment, but it was the Fascist regime that was finally willing to carry out the necessary destruction to redevelop the area. The Academy intervened with their own Lungara redevelopment proposal because the institution wanted control of their neighborhood. The Academy’s proposal was crafted by the famous architect and urbanist Marcello Piacentini and approved by Benito Mussolini in late 1939. The project was set to be executed during the mid-1940s but was slowly given up on during Italy’s increasingly desperate situation during World War II.The Lungara redevelopment proposal would have clustered various Italian cultural institutions into the redesigned Lungara district, in physical proximity to the Italian Academy. This would have helped the Italian Academy perform its mission of coordinating Italian cultural production. The unrealized Lungara proposal is an urban planning expression of the Fascist regime’s desire for a totalitarian Italy.
Description
Master of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2021.
Date
2021
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Keywords
City planning, Buildings, Fascism and culture, Symbolism in architecture, Symbolism in city planning
Citation
Beckmann, Matthew. "The Citadel of Culture: The Italian Academy’s Unrealized Urban Plan to Redevelop Rome’s Lungara District". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2021.