Luigi Moretti. Fencing Academy in the Mussolini's Forum, Rome 1933-1937

2013 | Architecture & Design

Set in the widest urban neighbourhood of the fascist Rome, the "casa delle armi" building show the deep and sophisticated typological research around the "balilla houses". Born as an advanced typological experiment it is the most modern of the "National Balilla Opera" buildings: an architecture both with a solid image and a massive functional complexity. The "fluxes" of athletes and the one of clients are sharply driven with no interference in the body of the building. Notwithstanding such a complexity, the parts are clear: two different immense interiors so much different each other. But, like in a Dostoevsky drama, the plot meet some troubles that made impossible the full completion and the celebration of its success. Quickly inaugurated, never really opened, abandoned and soon forgotten, it can be told that the building was born dead. Its oblivion lasted for thirty years when, in the eighties, the need to find a safe place to celebrate the trials against the terrorism, convinced the Ministry of Justice to finally destroy the interiors.

The aim of this book is rather not to enter in the field of refurbishment of modern architecture than to tell about the story and the composition rules of this architecture: an affresco of the history and political, urban and architectural frame in which "Casa delle armi" is set. A very sharp 3d model help to come over the old shots imposed by the architect to the photographer, to set new points of view discovering, again, new sides and emotions.

Mario Ferrari (Author)