Florestano Di Fausto

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Florestano Di Fausto
Florestano Di Fausto (c. 1930)
Born(1890-07-16)16 July 1890
Rocca Canterano, Rome, Italy
Died11 January 1965(1965-01-11) (aged 74)
Rome, Italy
NationalityItalian
Alma materAccademia di Belle Arti, Rome; Sapienza University of Rome, Rome
OccupationArchitect

Florestano Di Fausto (16 July 1890 – 11 January 1965) was an Italian architect, engineer and politician who is best known for his building designs in the Italian

Fascist age in Italy and has been described as the "architect of the Mediterranean".[1] Uncontested protagonist of the architectural scene first in the Italian Islands of the Aegean and then in Italian Libya,[2] he was gifted with a remarkable preparation combined with consummate skills, which allowed him to master and to use indifferently and in any geographical context the most diverse architectural styles, swinging between eclecticism and rationalism
. His legacy, long neglected, has been highlighted since the 1990s.

Early life and career

Palazzo Varano in Predappio, one of the first works of Di Fausto

Born in

city plan and the main buildings of Predappio Nuova.[3][5] The Italian dictator had decided to move his hometown, Predappio, after a landslide that was menacing its survival. The idea behind the work of Di Fausto here was the creation of an idealized country village, through an "urban design of devotional kind",[3] in accordance with the many pilgrims visiting each day the birthplace of the "Duce", but in harmony with Mussolini's ideal of a rural Italy and his will to show his modest and simple roots.[5] The affordable houses for the inhabitants displaced by the landslide, the renovation of Palazzo Varano, the post office building, the Food Market, the Santa Rosa primary school and kindergarten, the doctors' house, the expansion of the cemetery of San Cassiano and the homonymous church and the tomb of the Mussolini family constitute the stages of his work in Predappio.[6]

Rhodes and the Dodecanese

Palazzo del Governo (today the offices of the Prefecture of the Dodecanese) in Rhodes, built in 1926.

In 1923, Di Fausto started to work for the governor of the

Cesare Maria de Vecchi; above all, the Mercato nuovo (Nea Agora, "New Market"), the center of the new city, an irregular polygonal structure enclosing the fishmongers pavilion, which possesses an unquestionable Oriental style.[3][4] Besides Rhodes, Di Fausto was active also in Kos, where his most important works are the Palazzo del Governo (1927–29) and the Catholic church of the Agnus Dei (1927), built with Rodolfo Petracco, with central plan and a bell tower tapered on the façade, considered his best work in the Dodecanese; in Kastellorizo, where he erected the Delegate's Building; in Kalymnos and Leros.[3][4] Since 1926 ever increasing differences of opinion with the governor pushed him to gradually abandon his commitments in the Aegean.[3] The quarrel ended in 1927 with a legal dispute, where Di Fausto showed that during his service in the Dodecanese he had designed no less than fifty buildings—houses, public buildings, churches, barracks, markets, schools—thirty two of them already built or in construction in 1927.[7] To keep this high pace of work, the architect worked also during his frequent boat trips between Italy and Rhodes.[7]

Works in Italy and Albania

Di Fausto's buildings in Skandenberg square, Tirana

At the same time Di Fausto, whose prolificity was impressive, was continuing also his work in Italy, above all in Rome—where he owned a thriving studio—and surrounding regions, where, in the second half of the twenties, he designed several housing complexes: among them, those for the civil servants of the MAE, in Via delle tre Madonne, characterized by its Roman barocchetto style.

Abruzzi, were the owners of a building company which executed many among the architect's works in Italy and abroad.[3]

In the same period, he was active also in

Neo-Renaissance style with articulate angular solutions and giant order fascias (1932).[5] In the same years he designed also the royal palace of Durrës (1928–30), with a central tower and two wings,[5] and the royal villa at Scutari (1928), both works being commissioned by King Zog I.[3]

Libya

The Arch of the Philaeni in March 1937

In 1932, Di Fausto became "consultant for architecture" of the city of

Maresciallo dell'Aria, as Governor-General of Libya, boosted his work.[10] The two men soon came to understand each other well (Balbo was so confident in Di Fausto to give him in 1938 the task of designing the city plan of his home town's center), and Di Fausto, nominated by Balbo chef of the "Commission for Urban Protection and Esthetics", with the main task of designing Tripoli's city plan,[11] started to produce a stream of projects for Libya's capital: there the architect outlined the plan of Piazza Castello (the area around the Red Castle) and of the square around the Arch of Marcus Aurelius, in the Medina. Moreover, he erected public buildings, churches, markets, hotels, totaling fifteen works in few years.[10] His masterpiece in Tripoli is the multifunctional center Al Waddan (hotel, swimming pools, casino, theater), characterized by a long row of arches parallel to today's Sharia al Fatah promenade.[10]
On 15 March 1937, with a lavish night ceremony in the presence of Mussolini, the
Ra's Lanuf was inaugurated, marking the border between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica along the newly built Via Balbia (today's Libyan Coastal Highway).[10] In all these works, the architect resumed his Greek experience, mixing with great virtuosity arabisant and novecento elements.[10]

Until the outbreak of World War II, Di Fausto extended his activity all over Libya, building hotels in pre-desertic towns as Jefren and Nalut, residences for officers in Tobruk, Menina and Castel Benito, various typologies of buildings in Benghazi, Misrata and Derna, and eight out of thirty-two rural villages, foundation towns for Italian colonists.[10] In all these works Di Fausto displayed his professional maturity, mastering the design of the most different types of buildings and design scales.[10] The peak of his African work was the design of the Libyan pavilion at the Mostra delle terre Italiane d'oltremare ("Exhibition of the Italian overseas territories") held in Naples in 1940.[10] His position as Balbo's "court architect" was sealed by the placement of his portrait near the Governor's in the frescoes painted by the Ferrarese Achille Funi on the vaults of the Church of Saint Francis in Tripoli, another work of him.[10]

In 1940, Di Fausto took also a short detour from his main activity, designing the scenography of the historic movie The King's Jester (Italian: Il re si diverte), directed by Mario Bonnard.[12]

Final years

The Sanctuary of Montevergine, completed after Di Fausto's death

During the war years, Di Fausto abandoned his fascist position approaching the

abstractism, existentialism and relativism were "manifestations of putrid matter".[3] His most noteworthy works during those years were the plan for the post-war reconstruction of Subiaco, the restoration of the cathedral of Sant'Andrea Apostolo of the same town, the design of the General House of the Cistercians on the Aventine Hill in Rome, and the restructuring of the Sanctuary of Montevergine, built in an arid neo-Romanesque style.[3] Finished in 1966, the complex shows a return to the traditionalism of his early days.[3][13] Di Fausto died in Rome in 1965. He was member of the Accademia di San Luca and of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon.[3]

Legacy

View of the Mercato Nuovo (Nea Agora) at the port of Mandraki, the center of the new Italian Rhodes.

Florestano Di Fausto was the most important Italian colonial architect of the Fascist regime.

Roman architecture.[16]

In this context Di Fausto, who was not a rationalist, laid hands on this concept. In his only writing, published in 1937, he states: "Architecture was born in the Mediterranean and triumphed in Rome in the eternal monuments created from the genius of our birth: it must, therefore, remain Mediterranean and Italian."[17] His talent and his political connections allowed him to put this theorization into practice. Thanks to his many works in Albania, Libya, the Italian Aegean Islands and Italy itself, it has been defined "Architect of the Mediterranean" per antonomasia.[1] His adhesion to the concept of mediterraneità is also reflected by his steady necessity to come in contact with the Genius Loci of the places where he was going to operate: he wrote, in the same writing cited above: "Not a single stone was placed by me without having filled myself in advance with the spirit of the place, so as to make it my own".[14]

His work resulted in a continuous balancing between traditional and modern architecture, eclecticism and rationalism.[14] He was "an unsurpassed model of professional architect who, thanks to a remarkable preparation combined with consummate skills, was able to master, and to use indifferently, and in any geographical context, each possible style: from Moorish to Venetian Gothic, from Renaissance to Novecento, reducing even the rationalist language to another Modern Style."[18] Due to his steadily swinging between traditional and modern styles, he was unremittingly attacked by the two opposite fronts of colonialist architects, the "neoclassicists" and rationalists.[19] His work, long neglected after the war, has been rediscovered since the 1990s, and since then his legacy has more and more become the object of study, although a general catalog of his works is still missing.[13]

Selected works
  • Al Waddan Center, Tripoli in the 1950s
    Al Waddan Center, Tripoli in the 1950s
  • Evangelismos church (former San Giovanni) at the Mandraki, Rhodes
    Evangelismos church (former San Giovanni) at the Mandraki, Rhodes
  • Main post office, Rhodes
    Main post office, Rhodes
  • Girls' School, Rhodes, built with Andrea Torasso
    Girls' School, Rhodes, built with Andrea Torasso
  • Catholic church, Tripoli
    Catholic church, Tripoli
  • Omar Mukhtar Street, Tripoli
    Omar Mukhtar Street, Tripoli
  • Cesare Battisti Village, Libya
    Cesare Battisti Village, Libya
  • Gabriele D'Annunzio Village, Libya
    Gabriele D'Annunzio Village, Libya
  • Portico of the Palazzo del Governo, now Prefecture building, Rhodes
    Portico of the Palazzo del Governo, now Prefecture building, Rhodes
  • Grande albergo delle Rose, now Casino Rhodos, Rhodes, built with Michele Platania
    Grande albergo delle Rose, now Casino Rhodos, Rhodes, built with Michele Platania
  • Circolo Italia in Rhodes, now a pastry shop
    Circolo Italia in Rhodes, now a pastry shop
  • Palazzo di Giustizia, now Courthouse, Rhodes, built with Rodolfo Petracco
    Palazzo di Giustizia, now Courthouse, Rhodes, built with Rodolfo Petracco
  • Banca d'Italia building, now Bank of Greece, Rhodes
    Banca d'Italia building, now Bank of Greece, Rhodes
  • Palazzo del Governo, now Town Hall, Kos
    Palazzo del Governo, now Town Hall, Kos

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Di Marco (2011), p. 119
  2. ISBN 9788877945792
    .
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae Miano (1991)
  4. ^ a b c d e Di Marco (2011), p. 120
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Di Marco (2011), p. 122
  6. ^ Magalini, Chiara. "Predappio". www.emiliaromagna.beniculturali.it. MiBact. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  7. ^ a b Di Marco (2011), p. 121
  8. ^ a b Di Marco (2011), p. 123
  9. ^ Di Marco (2011), p. 124
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Di Marco (2011), p. 125
  11. ^ Santoianni (2008), p. 59
  12. ^ "Il re si diverte". Cine Data Base. cinematografo.it. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
  13. ^ a b Di Marco (2011), p. 126
  14. ^ a b c d Santoianni (2008), p. 93
  15. ^ a b Santoianni (2008), p. 5
  16. ^ Santoianni (2008), p. 14
  17. ^ Anderson (2010), p. 3
  18. ^ Santoianni (2008), p. 86
  19. ^ Santoianni (2008), p. 96

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Florestano Di Fausto.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Florestano_Di_Fausto&oldid=1212806115"