Italian architecture overseas
In seventy years of Italian expansion in Africa (Eritrea, Somalia, Libya, Ethiopia) and the Mediterranean, cultural models followed the debate going on in Italy but were strongly influenced by local cultures and existing buildings of particular interest to architects.
Italy’s adventures as a colonial power, unlike those of other European countries, largely took the form of architecture and town planning, but while Italy’s political project followed the swing from post-liberal to totalitarian policies, in the country’s overseas colonies the architecture of the second half of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century demonstrated a greater formal liberty that was often unknown in Italy. Giuliano Gresleri and Pier Giorgio Massaretti’s book published by Bononia University Press uses the atlas format to organise this important experience in rigorously concise form. The authors catalogued 5000 key documents: colour and black and white illustrations, bibliographies, biographies and archives, dividing the information by country and observing the changes in the land, landscapes, cities and architecture through political programmes, reporting on them in the form of a documentary synthesis.
The authors’ declared intention is to attempt to "reunite history with the countries and peoples for whom it was interrupted by the new arrivals".
(by Agnese Bifulco)
Title: Architettura italiana d'oltremare– atlante iconografico
Authors: Giuliano Gresleri and Pier Giorgio Massaretti
Publisher: Bononia University Press
Format: 24.5 x 28
ISBN: 978-88-7395-401-9
Pictures:
(1) Atlas Cover
(2) Governor’s Palace in Asmara, 1903
(3) Former FIAT garage, now Shell service station, Eritrea
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