Marcello Piacentini

Born in Rome, he was the son of architect Pio Piacentini. He studied architecture at the Regio Istituto di Belle Arti, Rome, from 1901 to 1904 and completed his training with his father, with whom he produced a competition entry design (1903) for the National Central Library, Florence. In 1906 he became a teacher of architectural drawing at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, and in 1912 he was a civil architect at the Scuola di Applicazione degli Ingegneri, also in Rome. Within the prevalent eclecticism of the Roman architectural profession he sought to define his position by designing small-scale, picturesque ensembles that were inspired by Italian vernacular architecture. In this context his competition entries with the engineer Giuseppe Quaroni for the Asylum (1906), Potenza, and a city-centre plan (1906–8) for Bergamo are particularly interesting. The latter plan, which was modified during execution (1911–27), provided the opportunity to experiment with ideas of decentralization and building in relationship to the historic environment, and these experiments subsequently formed the basis of Piacentini’s treatise Sulla conservazione della bellezza di Roma e sullo sviluppo della città moderna. He also worked on a remarkable series of residential buildings in Rome, including small residential blocks conceived as examples of picturesque urban ensembles, such as the Pateras Building (1910–24) in Via Giulia, and some dignified individual houses, for example in Via Germanico (1918–21) and in Via Flaminia (1918–24). These were paralleled in a number of exhibition pavilions, notably that for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition of 1915, in San Francisco, where he designed an ensemble of buildings and public spaces for an imaginary small Italian town, reflecting the aesthetically motivated urban planning of Camillo Sitte. In 1912 Piacentini was made project manager of all Italian building works 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 1910s. He later moved toward a more modern expression of Italian colonial architecture, evident in his Albergo Italia as well as the Berenice Theatre in Benghazi. Piacentini’s work around this time appears to lack a coherent, unified approach. This eclecticism was modified, however, as a result of his travels in the United States (1915) and in Europe (1919), which reinforced his awareness of architectural trends outside Italy and later formed the basis of his article ‘Il momento architettonico all’estero’. His assimilation of non-Italian influences was evident particularly in his design for the Corso Cinema (1915–18), Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. With its reinforced-concrete construction, schematic allusions to the surrounding historic architecture and frank reflection of the secessionist idiom, this building was held to be a deliberately provocative example of Modernism by the conservative-minded architectural establishment of Rome. In the period after World War I Piacentini concentrated on urban planning. His early ideas on the preservation of historic city centres followed those of Sitte and Gustavo Giovannoni in emphasizing conservation and the qualities of neighbourhoods assembled from variegated architecture accumulated over the centuries, and in 1921, with Giovannoni, he founded the journal Architettura e arti decorative.

In 1923, with Giovannoni, he was appointed to review the current urban plan for Rome. Slum clearance, the need to improve traffic flow and Mussolini’s desire to restructure Rome led to the radical proposal of La grande Roma (1925), which was quite removed from his earlier ideas. In fact, with its large-scale destruction of historic fabric in the interests of making the monuments of Classical Rome visible from a distance and providing straight processional avenues, it is nearly a volte-face. Upgrading the city’s image from historic confusion to unified classicizing grandeur also informed Piacentini’s piano regolatore for Rome of 1931, which resulted in the creation of the Via dell’Impero (1932; now Via dei Fori Imperiali), the clearing of the area around the Mausoleum of Augustus (1934) and the demolition of the Spina del Borgo quarter (1936; with Attilio Spaccarelli) at St. Peter’s, for the creation of Via della Conciliazione. Outside Rome, Piacentini’s alignment with Mussolini’s view of commemorative architecture was expressed in monuments at Genoa (1923–31) and Bolzano (1926–8), the latter formed of columns carved into fasces. From 1928 to 1932 Piacentini executed the plan for the Piazza della Vittoria, the new centre of Brescia, a ‘forum’ created by the demolition of an old quarter. The style of the ensemble consists of a stripped classicism, while the various buildings are of an imposing scale, though of varying height, reflecting the architect’s early concern for historically sensitive architecture. Similarly sober, monumental and neo-traditionalist is the Casa Madre dei Mutilati (1928), Rome. Having evolved a style that he considered appropriate to the aspirations of the Italian people, Piacentini was obliged to defend it against explicit attacks by the Italian Rationalist architects representing avant-garde functionalism, who competed for the patronage of the Fascist state and organized themselves as the Gruppo 7 and later MIAR. Piacentini responded with his book Architettura d’oggi. Reproving the ‘excesses’ of the avant-garde, he asserted that the true objective of modern Italian architecture was to ‘include from the artistic movements of Europe what is universal and what corresponds to contemporary society, grafting on to this our own special characteristics and taking into account the particular demands of our climate’. In these years Piacentini rose to the highest prominence, becoming Italy's leading architect. In addition to being Mussolini’s favoured agent for the reconstruction of central Rome, he was director of L’architettura, the journal of the Fascist Architects’ Trade Union, a member of the Royal Academy of Italy, and professor of Urban Planning at the Sapienza University of Rome, of which he was also president. He was also a consultant to the planning departments of many of the major Italian cities. In 1932 he was appointed by Mussolini to supervise the plans for the Città Universitaria, Rome. In his role as architectural coordinator Piacentini also assumed responsibility in 1936 for the site of the Esposizione Universale of Rome (EUR), to be inaugurated in 1942. From its origins as a simple exhibition site the EUR was increasingly impelled by Piacentini into becoming a new monumental quarter of Rome. Consequently monumentality and permanence became the criteria for the competition contributions by the various artists and architects, who included Rationalists such as Giuseppe Pagano, Giuseppe Terragni and Adalberto Libera. Indeed they were required to forge a ‘Fascist’ style that was simultaneously grandiose, classical, modern and functional. Piacentini oversaw the whole programme, intervening in an increasingly dominant manner, and this led to the end of his friendship with Pagano and to his imposition of penalties on the architects responsible for the individual buildings. His pursuit of the ideal of classicism was based on the view that the exhibition site was to be a permanent symbol of the new Italian Empire and therefore to be fittingly equipped with architectural associations of the ancient empire. The site was only partly completed when the exhibition was postponed in 1940 and cancelled in 1943 following the fall of the Fascist regime.

After the fall of the Fascist regime he did not work as architect for several years. Among the few prestigious works he achieved was the Palazzo dello Sport (1958–60; with Pier Luigi Nervi) at the EUR site. Piacentini died in Rome in 1960. His architecture was for many decades the target of severe condemnation, but eventually a more sympathetic judgement emerged that asserted the independence of architecture from politics and reassessed his work in this light.

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 most notable contributions include the renovation of Brescia and Livorno, the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria, the Milan Courthouse, and the restoration of the Rome Opera House (1928–1958).

Potenza, Progetto Ophelia (Ophelia Project), 1910 Benghazi, Albergo Italia (Italia Hotel, known beforehand as Grande Albergo Roma) 1913 (along with architect Luigi Piccinato) Messina Courthouse, 1913–1928 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 Milan Courthouse, 1932–1940 Bolzano, Army Headquarters, 1933–1935 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 Zagreb, Assicurazioni Generali Building, 1937 Rome, planning for EUR district, 1938–1942 Rome, Albergo degli Ambasciatori (Via Veneto), 1925–1932 São Paulo, Matarazzo Building, 1939 São Paulo, Palácio dos Bandeirantes, 1938 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