All time travel authorities look the same
I finally watched Loki on Disney+ (it’s hilarious) and one of the things that stood out to me was the aesthetic of the show’s Time Variance Authority (TVA). Brutalist with a mix of midcentury graphics and 1970s decor, it reminded me of the Fallout video games as well as Counterpart, the most underrated science-fiction series of recent years. The Office of Interchange in that show also uses…
A tour of the Palast der Republik, East Germany’s short-lived people’s palace
The Humboldt Forum, Germany’s answer to the British Museum and the Louvre of Paris, reopened this month in the rebuilt Berlin Palace after almost two years of controversy and debate.
The Forum combines the collections of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Museum of Asian Art, with many pieces acquired (or stolen) during the colonial era.
The Palast der Republik at night in August 1976…
A monumental elephant in place of the Arc de Triomphe. An aerodrome in the Jardins de Bagatelle. Multiple Eiffel Towers. Take our tour of the Paris that never was.
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By the middle of the nineteenth century, Barcelona was bursting at the seams. The city hadn’t expanded beyond its medieval walls, but its population had grown almost 50 percent between 1800 and 1850. The congestion was contributing to outbreaks of disease. There was clearly a need for expansion, but it wasn’t until 1853 that the central government in Madrid allowed Barcelona to tear down its…
Modernista Architecture in Barcelona
Modernisme is the Catalan version of Art Nouveau. Its popularity coincided with the late-nineteenth-century expansion of Barcelona, which more than doubled the city in size. Walk around the Eixample district, which rings the historical city center, and you’ll find countless examples of this organic architectural style that is rich in decoration and incorporates Arab and Gothic elements.
Some,…
Elevated railways, sky bridges, rooftop airports and a plan to drain the East River. New York City would have looked very different if these architects and engineers had had their way.
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The 1942 World’s Fair in Rome was an opportunity for Benito Mussolini to celebrate twenty years of Fascism and show to the world what progress Italy had made.
The fair never happened. World War II did. But Mussolini still built a complex for the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR).
The project was directed by Marcello Piacentini, who had designed the new campus of Rome University in 1935 and become a leading theorist of Fascist architecture. The neighborhood incorporated elements of Roman Imperial town planning and Italian Rationalist architecture, resulting in a simplified neoclassicism.
The postwar Italian government decided to convert the unfinished EUR into a business district. Fascist-era buildings that were already under construction were completed. Additional buildings were added in contemporary styles.
The Palace of Italian Civilization is the centerpiece of the EUR. Designed by three architects, Giovanni Guerrini, Ernesto Bruno Lapadula and Mario Romano, it was completed before the outbreak of World War II and is considered an icon of Fascist architecture.
When the 1942 World’s Fair was canceled, the palace stood empty for a decade. It hosted its first exhibition in 1953. A restoration was carried out between 2003 and 2008. The luxury fashion label Fendi currently rents the building from municipal authorities to use it as its headquarters. The ground floor still occasionally hosts exhibitions.
Construction on Adalberto Libera’s Congress Palace started in 1938 but was suspended during the war. The building was completed in 1954. It still hosts conferences today.
The Museum of Roman Civilization shares a building complex with the Planetarium and Astronomical Museum of Rome. A columnated passageway connects the two buildings.
The museum’s most famous exhibit is a scale model of Ancient Rome that took almost forty years to complete.
A monumental arch was meant to mark the southern end of the EUR. Proposals were made for an arch of concrete as well as one of steel before Vittorio Cini, who served as general commissioner for the EUR, announced in 1939 it would be made from aluminium. It was also reduced in size: from as wide as 600 meters to 330.
A favorite of Mussolini’s, the arch became a staple of advertisements for the aborted World’s Fair. It was never built.
Also unbuilt was an auditorium on the eastern end of Circus Maximus in old Rome. The architects Mario De Renzi, Adalberto Libera and Giuseppe Vaccaro submitted this proposal in 1935, which mixed classical with modern styles.
The 1942 World’s Fair was an opportunity for Benito Mussolini to show the world the achievements of Fascism. It never happened The 1942 World’s Fair in Rome was an opportunity for Benito Mussolini to celebrate twenty years of Fascism and show to the world what progress Italy had made.
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