Forms and Technologies of Italy’s Villa-mania (1955 -1970)

The increasing interest towards the concept of the so called ‘escape from the city’, fueled by the recent pandemic, prompt us to put the holiday villa at the center of research attention. In the collective imagination the villa is a manifesto of 'the good life’, often representing for architects a laboratory of experimentation and style and an exception in their portfolio. The fate of the villa in contemporary architecture and research culture reflects its very own position: outside of the ‘urban’ centres of knowledge and critical inquiry, it is still abundantly present as an unexamined source of architectural intelligence, history and ideology. This situation is particularly applicable to Italy, the birthplace of the villa: in histories focusing on Italian Post-war architecture, this type of building is strikingly absent. This thesis wishes to look at the history of this building type in Post-war Italy and to focus on seven buildings taken at different stages of construction, all built by architects for their clients and equipped with a Mediterranean view. This paper argues that the very condition of these architectural masterpieces was the product of an implicit state project enacted by the ruling government of the Christian Democrats through punctual and specific policies. Thorough selected building stories of a specific context, this thesis wishes to answer when and how could this building type finally become truly historical.