The Founding of a City: Construction Techniques between Innovation and Tradition in Littoria

Abstract

The founding of the city of Littoria (then Latina) in 1932 represented a nearly unique event on the European scene of those years, both for the speed with which it was completed, both for the fact that a single designer (Oriolo Frezzotti, 1888-1965) created the urban plan, the expansion plans and all main buildings. The great constructive and stylistic uniformity that characterizes the buildings of the city is due, as well as to the only designer, even to a variety of economic, social and political factors. The first factor was the autarky, imposed by economic sanctions suffered from Italy after the invasion of Ethiopia: the requirement to reduce the use of iron, and therefore of the reinforced concrete, involved the use of traditional construction techniques, such as the bearing stone masonry with double row of bricks, alternating each 1,5 metres, the continuous foundations in rubble stone masonry (named "alla Romana") with brick vault, the wooden window frames. The adoption of traditional techniques was also necessitated by the lack of technical preparation of the manpower, consisting mainly by the settlers, mostly veterans of the First World War. The desire to rebuild an environment familiar to the settlers themselves, involved the choice of rustic materials, simple finishes, that confer a rural appearance to buildings: hence the use of the plaster coatings façade, of travertine to the basement, and the use of types of buildings tall than two floors. Equally crucial was the imposition of an extreme speed of implementation, ordered by the fascist regime for propaganda reasons: this fact determined the use of replicable elements, built outside work: floors with steel beams and prefabricated brick, Palladian trusses for the roofs, false ceiling with “camera a canne”. All these elements merged in building regulation, drafted by the same Frezzotti, which contained strict and detailed constructive requirements for construction.