Armando Brasini (Rome, 21 September 1879 - Rome, 18 February 1965) was a prominent Italian architect and urban designer of the early twentieth century and exemplar of Fascist architecture. His work is notable for its eclectic and visionary style inspired by Ancient Roman architecture, Italian Baroque architecture and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. [1]
Armando Stefano Ludovico Brasini was born in the Roman district of Tor di Nona from a family of modest background, the son of Augusto Brasini and Rosa Piersigilli. [2] : 19 After having successfully attended the Institute of Fine Arts, he started specializing in renovation of old buildings and interior decoration. In 1897-1898 he worked with Raffaello Ojetti on the renovation of the Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in Bracciano for its owner, Prince Baldassarre Odescalchi . [2] : 19 In the early 1900s he worked on the decoration of the Roman churches of Santa Teresa and San Camillo de Lellis, both with Tullio Passarelli , and on stucco work in Santa Maria dei Miracoli . [2] : 21-22 In 1912, he teamed with Marcello Piacentini for the winning entry in a competition for the remodeling of Piazza Navona, which was, however, not implemented. In those years he operated from a spacious office in Palazzo dei Piceni in the center of Rome. [2] : 22 In 1917 he created stucco decoration in the Palazzo Chigi following its purchase by the Italian state. [2] : 38 Immediately after World War I he proposed a colossal memorial to the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, featured a cascade flanked by giant statues, that would have been carved on the nearby Pizzocco mountain. [2] : 23&25
In the early 1920s he worked with Giuseppe Volpi, then Governor of Tripolitania, on the remodeling of Tripoli. There he designed the Savings Bank Building (Palazzo della Cassa di Risparmio, now the country's central bank), the waterfront boulevard (Lungomare Conte Volpi, now Ad-dahra Al-kebira), the renovation of the Red Castle, and the memorial to the Italian conquest (Monumento ai Caduti e alla Vittoria). [3] In 1925-1926, he also produced the first master plan for the expansion of Tirana, where Italian influence was significant at the time. That plan was partly implemented, and elements of Brasini's design still exist in the layout of Skanderbeg Square and in the city's major north–south axis, now Dëshmorët e Kombit Boulevard. [4] In 1929 he was appointed a member of the newly created Royal Academy of Italy.
Brasini also designed sets and costumes for silent movies, including Theodora (1921) and Quo Vadis (1924). [5] : 122
Brasini had a lifelong interest in urban design. In 1925–27, he conceived a project for a remodeling of Rome's center dubbed the "Mussolini Forum" (Italian : Foro Mussolini) which would have entailed the demolition of much of the Campo Marzio, leaving the ancient monuments (Pantheon, Column of Marcus Aurelius, Obelisk of Montecitorio) standing alone in large urban spaces. [6] : 276-278 Brasini's emphasis on facilitating car traffic at the cost of the old city fabric has elicited comparisons with Le Corbusier's 1925 Plan Voisin for Paris, despite the obvious stylistic difference. [6] : 100 In 1927, he was commissioned by the Ministry of Public Education to design a master plan for the Flaminio neighborhood, on which he had already worked in 1915. [2] : 22, 26 In 1931, he participated in the committee for a new city plan of Rome (Commissione del Piano Regolatore di Roma), [2] : 26 and in 1934 he was a member of the jury for the Palazzo Littorio project that would have faced the Basilica of Maxentius across the Via dell'Impero (now Via dei Fori Imperiali). [6]
His prestige projects in Rome included, in the 1920s, the church of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Parioli and the sprawling Complesso del Buon Pastore on Via di Bravetta, and in the 1930s, the seat of Istituto nazionale per l'assicurazione contro gli infortuni sul lavoro buttressing Quirinal Hill, as well as the Ponte Flaminio. He also designed major public buildings in Southern Italy: the Palazzo del Podestà in Foggia (built between 1928 and 1932), and the massive Palazzo della Prefettura in Taranto (built from 1930 to 1934).
Brasini produced designs for a number of major projects that were never built. In 1931 he participated in the competition for the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow. In the 1930s he produced various designs for a colossal Mole Littoria in Rome, intended to celebrate Mussolini's imperial achievements and match Albert Speer's plans for Nazi Berlin. Mussolini did not approve the project, however, due to its high costs and competing projects of EUR. In 1939 he designed a new cathedral for Addis Ababa, and in 1956 a colossal lighthouse intended as a monument to Christianity in the Saxa Rubra neighborhood of Rome. [5] : 123
For the EUR, Brasini in 1938 designed a monumental Forestry Institute named after Alessandro Mussolini, Benito's father, whose construction started in 1940 but was suspended in 1942 for war reasons. The partly built structure was demolished in 1957 and replaced by the General House of the Marist Brothers, in spite of Brasini's attempts to promote alternative design options to save the construction.
Following World War II, Brasini no longer received major commissions in Italy, but he remained involved in the completion of some of his projects, such as the Ponte Flaminio and the Parioli basilica. He produced plans for the city of Riyadh and a royal palace there, at the invitation of the government of Saudi Arabia (1954), and for a bridge over the Strait of Messina (1956-1963). [2] : 26 [5] : 123 He died in 1965 in the house he had designed for himself on Via Flaminia.
Paolo Portoghesi, while acknowledging the "undoubted architectural merits" of Brasini's designs, defines him as "one of the great misfits of twentieth-century architecture" for generally not being "in tune with the spirit of the times," but rather representing "a case of estrangement from that spirit." [7]
The Via Flaminia was an ancient Roman road leading from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to Ariminum (Rimini) on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, and due to the ruggedness of the mountains was the major option the Romans had for travel between Etruria, Latium, Campania, and the Po Valley. The section running through northern Rome is where Constantine the Great, allegedly, had his famous vision of the Chi Rho, leading to his conversion to Christianity and the Christianization of the Roman Empire.
Andrea Palladio was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.
GiacomoBarozzida Vignola, often simply called Vignola, was one of the great Italian architects of 16th century Mannerism. His two great masterpieces are the Villa Farnese at Caprarola and the Jesuits' Church of the Gesù in Rome. The three architects who spread the Italian Renaissance style throughout Western Europe are Vignola, Serlio and Palladio. He is often considered the most important architect in Rome in the Mannerist era.
The city of Rome, Italy, is divided into first-level administrative subdivisions.
Campo Marzio is the 4th rione of Rome, Italy, identified by the initials R. IV. It belongs to the Municipio I and covers a smaller section of the area of the ancient Campus Martius. The logo of this rione is a silver crescent on a blue background.
The Palazzo Venezia or Palazzo Barbo, formerly Palace of Saint Mark, is a large early Renaissance palace in central Rome, Italy, situated to the north of the Capitoline Hill. Today the property of the Republic of Italy it houses the National Museum of the Palazzo Venezia. The main (eastern) facade measures 77 metres in length, with a height of about 31 metres. The north wing, containing the "Cibo Apartment", extending westwards, measures 122 metres in length. It covers an area of 1.2 hectares and encloses two gardens and the Basilica of Saint Mark. It was built in the present form during the 1450s by Cardinal Pietro Barbo (1417-1471), titular holder of the Basilica of Saint Mark, who from 1464 ruled as Pope Paul II. Barbo, a Venetian by birth as was customary for cardinals of the Basilica of Saint Mark, lived there even as pope and amassed there a great collection of art and antiquities. During the first half of the 20th century it became the residence and headquarters of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who made notable orations from its balcony to huge crowds filling the Piazza Venezia.
Parioli is the 2nd quartiere of Rome, identified by the initials Q. II.
Giuseppe Valadier was an Italian architect and designer, urban planner and archaeologist and a chief exponent of Neoclassicism in Italy.
Giuseppe Volpi, 1st Count of Misurata was an Italian businessman and politician.
Florestano Di Fausto was an Italian architect, engineer and politician who is best known for his building designs in the Italian overseas territories around the Mediterranean. He is considered the most important colonial architect of the Fascist age in Italy and has been described as the "architect of the Mediterranean". Uncontested protagonist of the architectural scene first in the Italian Islands of the Aegean and then in Italian Libya, he was gifted with a remarkable preparation combined with consummate skills, which allowed him to master and to use indifferently and in any geographical context the most diverse architectural styles, swinging between eclecticism and rationalism. His legacy, long neglected, has been highlighted since the 1990s.
Ermenegildo Luppi (1877–1937) was an Italian sculptor.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Rome:
Flaminio is the 1st quartiere of the Italian capital Rome. Identified by the initials Q. I, it belongs to the Municipio II and has 13,018 inhabitants and an area of 1.1877 km². The name is derived from the Via Flaminia.
Pinciano is the 3rd quartiere of Rome (Italy), identified by the initials Q. III. The name derives from the Pincian Hill. It belongs to the Municipio II.
The Piazza Euclide railway station is a railway station in Rome (Italy), on the Rome–Civitacastellana–Viterbo railway, managed by ATAC. It is the only underground stop of the line, excluding the Flaminio terminus.
Villa Glori is a 25-hectare (62-acre) city park in Rome, Italy, within the Municipio II and the quarter Parioli. It is also called Parco della Rimembranza.
Ponte Flaminio is a bridge in Rome (Italy), crossed by Corso di Francia, in the Quartieri Parioli and Tor di Quinto and in the zone of Vigna Clara.
Corso di Francia, informally called Corso Francia, is a street in the northern area of Rome (Italy). It runs in a south–north direction between the Quarters Parioli and Tor di Quinto and, together with the nearby Via del Foro Italico and Viale Guglielmo Marconi, is the only urban road in the town to overpass the Tiber keeping the same name on both banks.
The Red Castle, in Arabic As-saraya Al-hamra, sometimes also Red Fort or Red Saraya, is a major landmark on the waterfront of Tripoli, bordering Martyrs' Square. It has been the home of the Red Castle Museum since 1919, and of the Libyan Department of Archaeology since 1952.