IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

After Rome became the capital of the Italian State in 1871, the city sought to undertake initiatives to become a symbol of the newly unified nation. As a result, studies were launched to develop urban plans that would respond to these ambitions by designing a new urban center for the city, while also envisioning areas for suburban expansion. A series of unfinished or only partially realized projects meant that the condition of the historic center—also the civic and social heart of the city—remained unresolved by the 1920s. All the proposals drawn up during the liberal governments were adopted from 1926 onward by the Governatorato of Rome, which initiated a broad campaign involving archaeological excavations, the clearing of monuments, and the restructuring of roadways. These interventions continued until 1944 in the area under study, specifically the urban section stretching from the slopes of the Capitoline Hill to the Forum Boarium. This research project offers an opportunity to revisit this historical period through a historical-urbanistic lens and a multidisciplinary methodology. It aims to investigate the urban area before, during, and immediately after the major and definitive transformations carried out under Mussolini’s Fascist regime, from two main perspectives: historiographic revision and graphic analysis, the latter seeking to reconstruct the spatial and environmental characteristics of this completely lost section of the city.