Casa Littoria, Bolzano: A Fascist Party Headquarters and Contested Monument
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.2
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Italian
- Site type
- Civic
On this page8 sections
History
Casa Littoria, Bolzano, in Italy, is a rationalist building constructed between 1939 and 1942 as the headquarters of the National Fascist Party and its affiliated organizations. Fascism was the authoritarian movement and regime led by Benito Mussolini, who used the title Duce, meaning “Leader.” Commissioned by the Fascist Party, the building was designed by Guido Pelizzari, Francesco Rossi, and Luis Plattner. Its location and monumental character formed part of the regime’s reshaping of Bolzano’s urban centre.
Fascist-era construction
The building stands on Piazza del Tribunale, formerly Piazza Arnaldo Mussolini, between Italy Avenue and Duca d’Aosta Avenue. It was conceived as an architectural counterpart to the concave Courthouse opposite it, whose construction extended from 1939 to 1956. The pairing expressed the relationship between Fascist political authority and the institutions of the state in a prominent civic setting.
A monumental travertine relief was commissioned for the headquarters from Hans Piffrader, a sculptor from Bolzano. The work remained unfinished when Mussolini was overthrown on 25 July 1943. Three central panels were kept in the open area of the building’s balcony and were installed only in 1957, after President Giovanni Gronchi visited a trade fair. Their installation took place during the postwar South Tyrolean conflict and against the original recommendation of the Trento heritage authorities.
Postwar use and public controversy
After the Second World War, the former party headquarters was converted to state use. It has housed the State Financial Offices and other state agencies operating in South Tyrol, and remains owned by the Italian state. The relief, however, continued to carry the political message of the Fascist regime and became a major point of conflict between German-speaking and Italian-speaking communities.
Many German-speaking South Tyroleans regarded the glorification of Mussolini and Fascism as provocative and demanded the relief’s removal. Italian-speaking groups defended its preservation and physical integrity as an expression of Italian sovereignty in South Tyrol. On 9 February 2009, Governor Luis Durnwalder called for the relief to be dismantled and proposed moving it to a museum. On 26 January 2011, Culture Minister Sandro Bondi agreed to its removal during negotiations connected with a vote of no confidence. Historians from both language groups subsequently argued for preserving it as a public memorial and information site.
Historicization and democratic interpretation
In 2011, the provincial government of South Tyrol opened a competition for proposals to historicize the relief. Historicization in this context meant adding critical explanation and a counter-message so that the monument’s original political meaning would be exposed rather than simply erased. A commission consisting of Andrea Di Michele, Hannes Obermair, Christine Roilo, Ugo Soragni, and Silvia Spada reviewed 486 submissions in 2014 and recommended a modified version of a project by Arnold Holzknecht and Michele Bernardi.
The project was carried out in 2017. It retained the relief in its original position but placed an illuminated quotation attributed to Hannah Arendt in front of it: “No one has the right to obey.” Arendt was a twentieth-century political theorist whose work examined totalitarianism, responsibility, and obedience. Explanatory panels were added in Italian, German, and Ladin, and an information point in the square presented the building, the relief, its wider urban setting, and the quotation in four languages.
The installation was unveiled on 5 November 2017 in the presence of Governor Arno Kompatscher and Mayor Renzo Caramaschi. It was intended to weaken and historicize the Fascist monument, rather than demolish it or leave it unchanged. The approach was praised as an internationally noted example of turning Fascist art into a democratic place of learning, but it was also opposed by right-wing parties, the local branch of Italia Nostra, and the art critic Vittorio Sgarbi. Casa Littoria and its relief are discussed alongside Bolzano’s Victory Monument as surviving Fascist monuments whose interpretation has been reshaped through contextualization.
Remains
The rationalist building
Casa Littoria is a rationalist structure with a convex form. Rationalism was a modernist architectural movement based on simplified forms, geometric composition, functional planning, and limited historical ornament; in Italy, it was widely used for public buildings under Fascism. The main facade faces Piazza del Tribunale. Above a broad ceremonial staircase, a large balcony carries the monumental relief, integrating the sculpture into the building’s principal public elevation.
The monumental relief
The travertine relief measures approximately 36 metres across and 5.5 metres high. It is made up of 57 panels of varying widths arranged in two superimposed rows. The panels are approximately 2.75 metres high, cover about 198 square metres, and weigh approximately 95 tonnes in total. Popularly known as the “Mussolini Frieze,” it is described as the largest relief in Europe and, because of its dimensions, probably the most imposing Fascist-era bas-relief still publicly displayed.
At the centre, Mussolini appears on horseback giving the Roman salute, a Fascist gesture presented as a revival of ancient Roman practice. The composition includes the slogan “believe, obey, combat” and depicts, from a Fascist perspective, the Italian victory in the First World War, the creation of Fascist combat organizations, the March on Rome, the war in Ethiopia, and the Spanish Civil War. The March on Rome in October 1922 marked Mussolini’s seizure of power in Italy.
The upper-left corner carries the words “Viva Mussolini,” while the right edge contains the stylized inscription “DUX.” Beneath it is Piffrader’s signature, written as “Giov. Piffrader, aged 52,” using Giovanni rather than his German first name, Hans. Between the horse’s forelegs is “EF XX,” meaning the twentieth year of the Fascist Era. This was the regime’s calendar, counted from the March on Rome as year one, so the inscription anticipated the regime’s twentieth anniversary in 1942.
Other inscriptions identify former Fascist organizations that were prohibited in Italy after 1945. GUF refers to the Fascist University Groups, PNF to the National Fascist Party, GIL to the Italian Youth of the Littorio, OND to the National After-Work Organization, and MVSN to the Voluntary Militia for National Security, widely known as the Blackshirts.
The 2017 interpretive installation
The 2017 intervention added the illuminated Arendt quotation in deliberate contrast to the surviving Fascist slogan. An information point in the square provides explanatory texts in four languages about the building, the relief, the surrounding urban setting, and the quotation. Together, the added inscription and information point frame the original imagery with a later democratic interpretation while leaving the relief in its historic position.
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