Maulsby's project considers fascism’s legacy in postwar Italy by tracing the history of Fascist Party headquarters or case del fascio, the building type most closely tied to fascism, from the late 1930s to the present day.
These buildings, the majority of which now function as military or police headquarters, serve as a register of the political, social, and economic challenges and opportunities Italy confronted in the decades following Mussolini’s dismissal from office. They also provide an opportunity to consider how the cultural politics of the Cold War, as well as other forces, shaped popular and scholarly understanding of the nation’s interwar architectural history and obscured the continuities between architectural culture and practice in the inter and postwar periods. More broadly, through the example of Italy, this study seeks to address how and to what extent the architecture of discredited regimes continues to shape discourse and practice once a new political order has been established. In addition, how does the enduring presence of these buildings inform the public perception of government and state power and notions of identity, and inform public memory?
