MARCELLO PIACENTINI
An Architecture for the Vernacular
Piacentini was the most frequently chosen Architect for regime projects.
Working in the vein of Fascist Italy as the spiritual successor to Rome, Piacentini was an advocate for a vernacular-based architecture, one that takes its cues from Roman precedent. His architecture could be described as a "reduced classicism' one that forgoes minute ornamental details for symbolically recognizable forms, particularly those communicating a sense of monumentality. Piacentini was wholesale against "modern architecture." He observed glass facades and ribbon windows as inappropriate for the Italian Climate, further legitimizing his approach grounded in tradition. Piacentini actually owned his own publication called Architettura, through which he fervently advocated for traditional monumentalism in Fascist architecture.
GIUSEPPE PAGANO
An Architecture for the Rational
As a member of the Movimento Internazionale d'Architettura Razionale (MIAR), Pagano also possessed his own journal, Casabella, which he used both to rail against the monumentalism promoted by Piacentini, but also to further the rationalist architectural agenda. Pagano's ultimate aim was to powerfully express the Regime's energy and ingenuity through architecture which applied contemporary building methods and materials.
Though Pagano's views differed sharply with those of Piacentini, the two worked together on various projects, most significantly the Palazzo Della Civilta Italiana.
As an aside, it is worth noting that though architects had free stylistic reign in their work, deviation from the propaganda-based narratives set in motion by the regime was uncommon. It is almost as though the propaganda itself possessed an agency to influence the continuing creation of propaganda (of which the architecture ended up embodying).
