PL
Rome, as the headquarter of fascist Italy, became the place where il Duce was fulfilling his dreams of restoring the Great Empire. The architecture that appeared in the times of the dictator, is as much progressive (it has roots in the early 20th century European Avant-garde art), as it is traditional – through its references to ideas of culture and nation. In the course of the article, I presented the conditions that gave rise to fascist architecture in Rome. Daring architectural designs, connected with widening the streets, construction of new districts, highlighting the ancient monuments, led to destruction of parts of the city (mass evictions, damaged Renaissance and Baroque monuments). Realization of those enterprises was possible only during authoritarian rule – Mussolini had no difficulty either in commissioning the construction of the new, or destruction of the old buildings. At the threshold of the approaching war, Italian architecture performed primarily an ideological function, and secondarily, it fulfilled the material and aesthetic needs of the nation.