User:Mauri polimi/Casa del Fascio (Como)

Casa del Fascio, also called Palazzo Terragni, is a building located in Como (northern Italy), in Piazza del Popolo 4 (former Piazza Impero), and it is one of the masterpieces of the Italian Modern Architecture. It was designed by Italian architect Giuseppe Terragni (1904-1943). Inaugurated in 1936 it was used as a National Fascist Party branch until 1945 when the city of Como was liberated from the Fascist Regime. Since then it was used by the National Liberation Committee Parties and in 1957 it became the headquarter of the VI Legion of the Italian Finance Police, which still occupies it. The building has a square plan and four plans, of which the first one raised above the level of Piazza del Popolo.

Thanks to its high historical-artistic value, Casa del Fascio was listed by the Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape in 1986.

History
In the original project of Casa del Fascio in Como, which dates back to 1928, the building had a traditional layout reflecting the standards of the time, and was completely different from the actual one. The design process, which led to the final solution, lasted some years: after many project proposals and troubled events related to the building site, construction works began in July 1933 and ended in 1936, when it was inaugurated as the local branch of the National Fascist Party.

Casa del Fascio of Como held this function for a relatively short period, namely only nine years, from 1936 to 1945, the year in which the building was forcibly occupied by the Provincial Federations of the National Liberation Committee Parties, after the liberation of the city of Como from the Fascist Regime.

At the same time, the dispute over possession of property began. The Municipality of Como firstly claimed ownership of the building (even though the law No 159 of 27 July 1944 stated that the property of the Fascist Party should have passed to the State) and then expressed its willingness to purchase it. After a series of unsuccessful negotiations, in 1956 a notice was published in the Como newspaper "La Provincia" announcing the auction of Casa del Fascio. This could have posed some risks for the building: considering its privileged position in the centre of Como, the possibility of its demolition and subsequent replacement with a more profitable building or of a heavy typological and functional transformation was not to be excluded. Many voices of protest were raised against the auction, among them architect Bruno Zevi, and they reached such an extent that the event took on more and more national importance.

In order to prevent its sale, on 10 October 1956 the Italian Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape in Milan issued a restriction in accordance with law No 633 of 1941 on the authors' rights, decreeing the recognition of the important artistic character of Casa del Fascio. The auction was therefore withdrawn and the building remained State property and in 1957 it was assigned to the Command of the VI Legion of the Italian Finance Police, which still occupies it. It was the architect's brother, senator Attilio Terragni, who obtained the assignment of the building to the Italian Finance Police: a military and state body would never again allow the building to be alienated. In 1959 a further ministerial decree was issued that indirectly protected Casa del Fascio. The purpose of this restriction was to protect the context of the Como Cathedral, subject to a direct restriction, through a series of prescriptions for the surrounding buildings, among them Casa del Fascio. That decree probably became necessary because the Superintendency could not list the building, since it had not yet reached the fiftieth year required by the protection law.

In 1963, the Italian Finance Police requested the authorisation to the Superintendency for the extension of the fourth floor, with the construction of three rooms to be used as offices and a hallway, in place of the terrace on the building north side. Although the necessary authorizations for the execution of the works had been granted, these were never implemented. In 1968 the project for the fourth floor was re-submitted, but this time it was rejected by the Superintendency itself, also following the outrageous reactions provoked by the proposal in the academic field.

In 1986, at the end of the period of fifty years provided for by the protection law No 1089 of 1939, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (Italy) issued the monumental restriction, officially recognizing Casa del Fascio as a cultural heritage of relevant historical and artistic interest.

In the 1990s some restoration works were carried out (though limited to the most urgent works) by Alberto Artioli of the Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape in Milan, who also published a monograph on the building entitled “''Giuseppe Terragni, la Casa del Fascio di Como. Guida critica all’edificio: descrizione, vicende storiche, polemiche, recenti restauri''” (Giuseppe Terragni, Casa del Fascio in Como. A critical guide to the building: description, historical events, controversy, recent restorations). The restoration works described in the book involved the external marble surfaces, some bathrooms and a few vertical and horizontal concrete-framed glass blocks surfaces. This works posed, for the first time, specific questions on the problem of the restoration of the Modern Movement architecture for which a methodology of intervention did not exist before and which, in general, were difficult to be recognized as works of artistic value.

In 1993, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Giuseppe Terragni's death, the Superintendency organized a study day entitled “Materiali per comprendere Terragni e il suo tempo” (Materials to understand Terragni and his times), which took place at the Cariplo Congress Centre in Milan. It was attended by internationally renowned speakers such as Paolo Portoghesi, Alberto Sartorio, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso and Virgilio Vercelloni. The proceedings of the day were published in two volumes.

In 2004, for the centenary of Terragni’s birth, the Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape in Milan together with the Centro Studi Terragni, the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage and Activities of Lombardy and the Municipality of Como presented a series of events to be held during the year, which included moments of study, research, debate, exhibitions on the figure of the great architect, to be implemented through the establishment of a special National Committee. The Committee, called GT04, was chaired by Attilio Terragni, nephew of the architect, and boasted the presence of some of the most famous and representative architects in the world like Daniel Libeskind, Rafael Moneo and Peter Eisenman. The celebrations officially began on 18 April 2004, on the architect's birthday, and ended on 30 November. These events helped raise public awareness of the importance of Terragni's works in the history of architecture, not only in Italy but also worldwide.

In 2016 the eightieth anniversary of the construction of Casa del Fascio was celebrated and painter Fabrizio Musa from Como, in collaboration with the Maarc Association (Museo virtuale astrattismo architettura razionalista Como – Virtual museum Abstractism Rationalist Architecture Como), decided to pay homage to the architect's work by projecting the number Eighty on the main facade of Piazza del Popolo with the dates 1936-2016, to make the population participate in this remarkable achievement.

Casa del Fascio currently houses the Command of the VI Legion of the Italian Finance Police, but in February 2017 a petition was launched proposing its re-use for cultural purposes, namely as a museum of rationalism and abstractionism.

Description
During totalitarianism monumental architectures were often used as a propaganda of the Government ideologies: what their language has in common was the desire to privilege functional aspects of architecture, removing decoration and making sure that the form was subordinated to the function. Hence, the rigor and the functionalism promoted by the Fascist regime are translated in the constructive shapes of Casa del Fascio.

Interiors
The Casa del Fascio has a square plan of 33,20 m of side for a height of 16,60 m, equal to half of the base and corresponding to four floors in total. The entrance of the building is raised from the Piazza del Popolo by four steps leading to the access landing.

Passing through the glass doors on the ground floor, you reach the Atrium, characterized by a false ceiling covered with Nero di Belgio marble that, with its strong visual impact, prepares the visitor to see the Sacrario dei Martiri Fascisti, one of the most significant and emblematic space of the building. Because of its ideological and spiritual function, the Sacrario was then deprived of its original function and transformed into a place to celebrate the deads of the VI Legion of the Italian Finance Police. In the Atrium, but on the opposite side of the Sacrario, there is the main staircase, which is the cornerstone of the internal distribution. The crux of the Casa del Fascio, however, is the so-called Salone delle Adunate, a large central double-height room illuminated through a skylight made of concrete-frame glass block. Currently plastered white hue, in the past it was painted with a delicate light blue-green colour, probably applied to the upper limit of the beams skylight. This huge space originally contained the panels designed by the artist Mario Radice: a marble stele and a large image of the Duce on a glass support, dismantled after the post-war occupation of the building.

The gallery on the first floor overlooks the Salone delle Adunate and connected the offices once intended for the Political Secretariat, the Sala del Direttorio and the Political Secretary's office.

The second floor follows the distribution system of the first floor: the only difference is that gallery overlooks the roof of the Salone delle Adunate on which the inner courtyard opens. This is characterized by the alternation of walls covered with glass ceramic tiles (south-east and north-west sides) and walls made of concrete-frame glass blocks (south-west and north-east sides). The roof of the Salone delle Adunate, which is the floor of the inner courtyard, consists of three parts: two lateral parts in concrete-frame glass block and a the central walkway. From the internal gallery on the second floor you can access the rooms that were originally used for offices and administration.

On the top floor two open galleries divide the part originally intended for university groups from the part formerly reserved for the archive and the caretaker's accommodation. It is possible to reach this last floor exclusively from the secondary staircase, while the other two are reachable also through the main staircase.

Inside the Casa del Fascio, in addition to the already mentioned Nero di Belgio marble, were also used Pietra di Trani, the Giallo Adriatico marble and the Col di Lana marble.

Facades
The facades composition is based on golden ratio and clear geometrical proportions. These are made up of opaque parts, covered with Calcare di Bottincino slabs, and translucent parts of concrete-frame glass blocks.(Dal Falco, 2003, pp. 22-24) The four facades, equal in size, are different in architectural motifs and in the relationships between full and empty spaces, while maintaining their coherence for the materials used and for the structural rhythms.

The main facade on Piazza del Popolo is characterized by a large loggia divided in five spans. Here, Terragni had inserted curtains in order to shield the summer sun rays. The transparency of the loggia is balanced by the opaque lateral part that constitutes a real torre littoria, incorporated, however, in the parallelepiped volume of the building. It is in this portion that the documentary and illustrative scenes by painter Marcello Nizzoli were originally intended to be placed.

The Via dei Partigiani façade is defined by long wooden and iron windows and a concrete-frame glass block wall that occupies the span of the main internal staircase. Depending on the function of the rooms, the windows are divided into: ribbon windows for the bathrooms and "L" windows for the offices.

In the Via Pessina facade, the structural parts emerge in the three central spans thanks to the presence of the wooden windows and the respective concrete-frame glass block railings. On the top floor, instead, the wall recedes slightly creating a small loggia.

The rear facade, finally, presents, in the central portion, an emptying of the structure given by the glass wall on the ground floor and the large attic loggia on the top floor. In the central part there are "L" windows, while in the service staircase portion there is a vertical glazed windows.