Concept

Casa del Fascio (Bolzano)

Résumé
The former Casa del Fascio in Bolzano (also Casa Littoria) was built between 1939 and 1942 in a rationalist style on a project by the architects Guido Pelizzari, Francesco Rossi and Luis Plattner, as the seat of the Italian Fascist Party and its collateral organisations, in Piazza del Tribunale (Gerichtsplatz; formerly Piazza Arnaldo Mussolini). Since the end of World War II it has housed the State Financial Offices and other state bodies operating in South Tyrol. The convex-shaped building relates to the opposite Justice Palace, built between 1939 and 1956 to a concave design by Paolo Rossi de Paoli and Michele Busiri Vici. The former Casa del Fascio bears a monumental bas-relief designed and sculptured by Hans Piffrader, placed above a large balcony, with Benito Mussolini on horseback in the centre and in the act of the Roman salute and telling the story of the "triumph of Fascism", a work commissioned by the Fascist Party itself. It consists of 57 panels of variable width, 2.75 metres high, placed in two superimposed rows, for a linear development of 36 metres, an area of 198 square metres and a total weight of about 95 tonnes. These dimensions probably make it the most impressive bas-relief made during fascism and still exposed to the public. Despite being state-owned and continuous protests by German-speaking South Tyroleans, the relief remained untouched for decades. In 2011, the Italian Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi finally agreed to a contextualisation or removal of several fascist era remains in the province during negotiations with members of parliament of the South Tyrolean People's Party about an upcoming vote of no-confidence. In 2017, like the Bolzano Victory Monument, the Piffrader frieze was also subjected, on the initiative of the South Tyrolean Provincial Administration and on the basis of a joint historical commission proposal, to an intervention of historicization and recontextualization, on an artistic project by Arnold Holzknecht and Michele Bernardi, with the affixing of an illuminated inscription bearing a quotation from the philosopher Hannah Arendt in three languages (Italian, German, Ladin) — "No one has the right to obey" — as opposed to the fascist dogma of Believe, obey, combat (Credere, obbedire, combattere) still present on the bas-relief.
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