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This paper examines the construction, architecture, planning and design of New Towns in the Pontine Marshes, south of Rome, in the 1930s, analysing the discourses which contributed to their shaping and settlement. It focuses specifically on the plans and architectural characteristics of the city of Sabaudia as the best example of fascist urban utop...
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... front and on the combat field, where even soldiers' letters were carefully examined and systematically destroyed if judged too negative or nostalgic of peacetime (Bellosi et al., 2002;Magnifici, 2008), could be fully adopted in peacetime as a method of governmentality on a national scale. Finally, following the policy of Risorgimento nationalism, fascism deepened and expanded Italy's colonial program, with a destructive legacy for the environment (Caprotti, 2007(Caprotti, , 2014Ben-Ghiat and Fuller, 2008). Following Roger Griffin (2007), Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective (henceforth, simply Malm) rejuvenate the watershed idea of fascism as palingenetic ultranationalism -in chapter 7 (Toward Fossil Fascism?) and chapter 8 (Mythical Energies of the Far Right) of White Skin, Black Fuel: "whenever and wherever fascism appears, it will posit the sequence of past grandeur to present crisis to coming rebirth of an exalted and exclusive nation" (Malm, 2021: 228). ...
Can we conceive of a continuity in the way right-wing nationalisms address environmental issues from the origins of fascism to the currently ongoing global “polycrisis”? This article explores the use of the term “eco-fascism” in connection with the climate crisis and considers the political relationship between ecologism and the contemporary far right through a historical perspective, seeking to determine persisting patterns in the relationship between the far right and the environment. Section 1 travels back to the historical origins of this relationship between nationalism, fascism and the environment, arguing that the conceptions of nature adopted and nourished by fascism had scarcely anything to do with ecology in its contemporary meaning. Section 2 explores the most well-known and consolidated studies on the relationship between the far right and climate change denialism, identifying a broad consensus that unites scholars from various disciplines on the density, intensity and persistence of this political relationship in the current millennium. The article concludes by underlining the irreality, falsifiability and internal contradictions of the notion of “eco-fascism” at a time when right-wing regimes have seized power in many countries through the use of vocabularies and sentiments in defense of the territory and its resources, but with a substantial refusal to tackle global environmental problems.
... Allo scopo di sedentarizzare la pianura braccianti provenienti dal nord rimpiazzarono la popolazione locale dedita a lavori stagionali, di fatto cancellando ogni traccia di pastoralismo. Paradossalmente, il ruralismo che il regime contrappose all'urbanesimo provocò un aumento della produzione industriale di sementi, fertilizzanti e macchine agricole (Caprotti 2007). La fornitura di luce elettrica e acqua corrente, le reti delle città moderne (Graham 2001, p. 10), assunse A. Korolija, Architetture del tuttotondo. ...
Nella congiuntura storica tra Fascismo e modernizzazione rurale, la tra- sformazione del paesaggio e delle risorse idriche ha rappresentato un elemento chiave nella pianificazione dei nuovi insediamenti. L’area delle paludi pontine alle porte di Roma, per secoli una frontiera interna, era diventata durante il ventennio fascista l’area dove la trasformazione del paesaggio aveva significato una sperimentazione infrastrutturale e tecni- ca su vasta scala in cui le ibridazioni tra ingegneria ed architettura era- no visibili soprattutto nella città di fondazione. Il testo propone un’analisi sulle torri-serbatoio nelle città di fondazione pontine sotto l’aspetto sto- rico-compositivo come esempio di ‘ambientamento’ con l’obbiettivo di tratteggiare i caratteri architettonici e urbani degli edifici tecnici.
... acted rural policies that relied on technology; this, however, caused an increase in the industrial production of seeds, fertilisers and agricultural machinery (Caprotti 2007). Along with the productive aspect, modernisation implied the distribution of electric light and running water for the residing population. ...
In the convergence between Fascist ideology and rural modernisation, the exploitation of water resources for landscape change empowered planning as a key to achieve a new settlement pattern and hierarchy. In the outskirts of Rome, the Pontine Marshes underwent major infrastructural and technical transformations which prompted large-scale experimentation. In this process, some “hybrid buildings” came to the fore. Hovering between engineering and architecture, they enshrined utilitarian and symbolic meanings in the new townscapes. This is precisely the case of water towers which, in the Pontine area, stood both as technical buildings and figurative landmarks.
... Another local administrator told me: "we are dealing here with people who are a hundred years behind compared to us… concentrated in a place without rules… And so, we must impose the rules, there where there is no public force (forza pubblica)." 22 While the term bonifica recalls a much longer historical process of land reclamations in Southern Italy I have no space to develop here (for a discussion see Caprotti 2007, Tenzon 2018, the colonial undertones of this infrastructural undertaking come out clearly of one considers the shock and awe that infrastructure works such as these are meant to produce in the midst of often quite strong political contestations. Next to facilitating flows and circulations, in fact, another important feature of infrastructures is their embodiment of sovereign authority in places where it is highly questioned (see footnote 5; Hansen and Stepputat 2001). ...
This paper introduces the terminology of border infrastructures as a way to enrich a multi-perspectival approach to territorial bordering processes that takes seriously their stratifying and racialising dynamics. Building on the analysis of migrant informal dwellings, or ghettos, which are increasingly constructed as naturalised ‘black spaces’ in the Mediterranean, the paper’s contribution is twofold. First, it calls for more situated research into the multiple networks, connections and agencies involved in bordering processes, which often comprise complex interactions across ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, ‘human’ and ‘more-than-human’ boundaries. Second, it proposes to foreground the socio-materiality of borders-as-infrastructures by analysing how these actively reproduce a logic of separation in both a political and an ecological sense. The article pushes forward a more immersive understanding and methodology that is able to unearth the stratifying, racialising dimensions of contemporary borderwork across and within the confines of nation-state territoriality.
... 5 An accurate view on the History of Archaeology in Italy of the last century in [5; 9; 21]. 6 In Italy and in the rest of central Europe: [ pp. 49-51]). The charm of Rome and its ruins did not suffer any setbacks even after the Unification of Italy, in 1861, of which Rome was proclaimed capital following its annexation in 1870. ...
... The artefacts were organised according to thematic and chronological sequences, even though the lack of space and the abundance of objects on display recalls today 12 Most of the territory was characterized by extensive marshes, drained on the initiative of Mussolini: after the 30s the Pomptine Marshes, became a fertile plain, characterized by the planning of new towns. See [6]. 13 About the city in Pre-Roman and Roman times, with previous bibliography, see [10, pp. ...
... South Tyrol had come under Italian control in 1918, following the conclusion of the First World War (Alcock, 1970;Grote, 2012). Being, however, in a primarily German-speaking region, claimed for a long time by both Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bolzano, South Tyrol's capital city, had to undergo a process of 'Italianization' in order to fit the description of what being an Italian city entailed, and Benito Mussolini was very eager to implement such a process (Caprotti, 2007;Falasca-Zamponi, 1997). Among several policies that aimed to restrict the cultural identity of the ethnic German population of the region, the fascist state engaged in politics that included the construction of new monuments that promoted the Italian identity or the concealment of others that were regarded too Germanic (Hökerberg, 2017). ...
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Greek state engaged in a campaign that opted to present southern Macedonia as a genuinely Hellenic space. The goal was to inhibit rival national discourses that emphasized the primordial presence of non-Greek ethnic groups in the province which legitimized expansionist claims by other states. To achieve this, many Greek governments at the time employed agents and institutions who used three devices to spatialize the Hellenic past of the province: Travelogues, monuments, and excavations. This paper explores and assesses their impact on defining southern Macedonia as a Greek land.
... Next, we could investigate how self-styled populist movements, looking for cultural and demographic renewal against what they see as decadent democratic liberalism, have used the city in its various historical forms as a source of inspiration or of disgust. Nazi, Fascist, and Communist regimes all held the city in ambiguous regard: as a symbol of decadence, national decline or depravity on the one hand, and of potential renewal on the other, where rationality, monumentality, and a modern aesthetic could sweep away the past (Caprotti, 2007;Lane, 1986;Schenk & Bromley, 2003). Today, regimes claiming to represent the popular will tend not to undertake grand urban planning projects in the same way as in the past, but the city still serves as a convenient reference point for populist demagogues and partisans. ...
Research on populism is animating academic debate in light of the growing global relevance of populist parties and ideologies as well as of the recent events that have radically affected the conceptualization of the border, security, and politics nexus. Until recently, the contribution of political geography and border studies to the analysis of populism has been limited, although borders, sovereignty, globalization, and inequality are crucial elements mobilized by the current populist wave. In this contribution we seek to initiate an exploration of bordering processes and walling, both metaphorical and concrete, as central features of populist agendas in the European context and beyond. The interventions provide a dynamic picture of the spatialization of fear at a time when various successive “emergencies” – the rise of populism, the alleged closure of Mediterranean ports, Brexit, and Covid-19 – have pushed previous concerns into the background, with the result that the spatial aspects of identity, our relationship with the other, and the political articulation of threat are continuously re-elaborated.
... Attempts to unravel the difficult link between cities and their 'negative' effects on the natural world have happened in a multiplicity of ways, often experimental, in different settings. For example, the New Towns built in the Soviet Union (Bolotova 2012), or in fascist Italy (Caprotti 2007), were in large part attempts to reshape the city and re-orient urban structure so as to fit more closely into metabolic trajectories decided by the state. This was carried out through the tools and techniques of urban planning, urban design, architecture, engineering and other areas of urban technique through which specific politicalideological views came to be expressed and materialised. ...
Drawing on examples from various cities, the chapter traces the convergence between eco-urbanism and smart urbanism in the past two decades. The chapter begins by tracing the eco-city and smart city's conceptual trajectories, before moving on to consider how these have become enmeshed into what has been called the 'smart eco-city' from the mid-2010s onwards. The chapter then moves on to consider, briefly, the broad terrain around the 'green economy'. The smart eco-city is placed within a broader concern with harnessing Big Data, the Internet of Things, digital lifestyles and infrastructures to connect the urban to green economy visions, strategies and pathways. Concluding, the discussion highlights the divergence between mainstream smart eco-urbanism and potential alternatives that emerge when considering urban social sustainability more closely.
... The Latina Province in Italy has attracted the attention of scholars from many disciplines because of its close association with Fascism. A snapshot of the literature about the region reveals interest from Planning (Bodenschatz 2014;Nuti 1988, 82;Rifkind 2012), Architecture (Kirk 2005;Millon 1978), Geography (Caprotti 2007;Caprotti and Kaika 2008;Gentilcore 1970), Politics (Frandsen 2010), Human Science (Burdett 2003(Burdett , 2010, Italian Studies (Ghirardo 1990), and History (Snowden 2008). However, none of these perspectives fully grasp the visual-aesthetic dimension of urban design, and the spatial, visual and object qualities that determine the character of a place (Carmona et al. 2010, 169). ...
The Latina Province in Italy is synonymous with Italian Fascism. This connection is manifest in the different design perspectives that contributed to the formation of the region’s visual character during the 21 years of Fascist rule between 1922–43. Corporativist urbanism framed how Fascism’s stories, myths and fables were told through numerous graphic objects that embellished new towns during the region’s reclamation. Through the lens of graphic design as urban design, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of how the Latina landscape was conceived, planned and made at the macro, meso and micro scale.
... Despite the fact that the Marshes had long been cultivated and inhabited, the fascist propaganda portrayed the region as a deserted and malarial wasteland (Gruppuso 2013(Gruppuso /2014. This idea is still common and the region before the fascist reclamation is often described as "nothing but a malaria infested marsh" (Harris 1957: 311; see also Caprotti 2006Caprotti , 2007a. This image had a twofold result. ...
The article explores the genealogy of Edenic narratives about the Pontine Marshes in Agro Pontino, Italy, and the imaginary of the Bonifica Integrale (integral reclamation). This process of reclamation, implemented by the fascist regime throughout the 1930s, drained the Marshes transforming their ecological, economic, and social structure. The dominant reading of Agro Pontino's history is polarised through a dualistic view that sees the Marshes as the realm of an almost pristine nature and the Bonifica Integrale as a life-giving event that transformed that environment, making it cultivable and inhabitable. This view reflects a modernist understanding of time as a series of punctuated events in a linear trajectory that leads to environmental degradation. In conservation, this interpretation produces problematic political effects resulting in a specific approach that positions agriculture and nature on opposite sides. The article presents ethnographic materials that challenge this view and suggests a different approach, an 'Anthropocene conservation', which looks at the sustainability of the future rather than defining an ecological baseline to restore.
