The afterlife of fascist-colonial architecture

During the period of the two world wars, under the fascist regime, Italy built a vast number of public buildings, housing and monuments that have shaped Italian cities and former Italian occupied cities such as Asmara, Addis Ababa, Rhodes and Tripoli. In the last years, these built structures have been celebrated and completely detached from the fascist, violent and genocidal regime that produced them. With the re-emergence of today’s fascist ideologies in Europe—and the arrival of populations from north and east Africa—it becomes urgent to ask: what kind of heritage is the fascist-colonial heritage? How do the material traces of the Italian empire today acquire different meanings in the context of migration from the ex-colonies? Should this heritage be demolished, simply reused or re-oriented towards other objectives including reparations from Italian colonization?

As part of the 5x5x5 program of Manifesta 12 in Palermo, the Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Course taught by Alessandro Petti, professor in Architecture and Social Justice at the Royal Institute of Art (RIA) in Stockholm, will present a project for critical re-use of the Casa del Mutilato—a fascist building designed by Giuseppe Spatrisano and inaugurated by Benito Mussolini in 1936. The project takes the form of an architectural intervention; a prosthesis to the Casa del Mutilato which will act as a tool to reorient the future uses of the building and pragmatically start a much needed restoration process. Invited guests, including Mia Fuller, Adelita Husni-Bey, Nicola Labanca, Shourideh C. Molavi, Peter Lang, Vittoria Capresi, Sandi Hilal, Andrea Bagnato, Anna Positano, Emilio Distretti, Rahel Shawl will debate the legacies and ruins of Italian fascist architecture and their mutilated histories in a public seminar held between June 18 and 19 from 6 to 11pm.

Researchers, associations, and individuals are also invited on June 20 to take part to the first plenary meeting of the “Coalition for re-use of colonial fascist architecture.” The coalition was established with the aim of producing research and planning interventions for the re-use of colonial-fascist architecture by, and for communities that directly or indirectly have been affected by past and present forms of fascism and colonization. The struggle of decolonization once primarily located outside of Europe, today has moved within its borders.  What the media calls the “refugee crisis” is, in reality, the incapacity of Europe to come to terms with five hundred years of colonialism. It is not possible to understand today’s displacement of people and migration flows, nor contemporary fascism, without thorough knowledge of fascist-colonial architecture.

Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Course 2017-2018. Professor: Alessandro Petti; Assistant: Elof Hellstrom: Students: Hala Alnaji, Patricia Aramburu, Matthew Ashton, Nadia El Hakim, Anna Maria Furuland, Benas Gerdzuinas, Radoslav Istok, Carlota Jerez, Tatiana Letier Pinto, Ilaria Lombardo, Yasmeen Mamoud, Ambra Migliorisi, Fernanda Ruiz, Bert Stoffels, Mauro Tosarelli, Nina Turull Puig, Victoria van Kan.

Venue: Casa del Mutilato, via Alessandro Scarlati 12, Palermo.
Date: June 18, 19, 20 from 6 to 11pm
Entrance: free
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