Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, Rationalist architecture building in EUR district, Rome, Italy.
The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana is a square-plan, travertine-clad block in Rome's EUR district, 60 metres tall on a 53-metre base. Each of its four identical facades has 54 round-headed arches, nine across and six high, opening onto a dark loggia; the top level is a solid stone band. Engraved above the arches is the phrase "un popolo di poeti di artisti di eroi...", and 28 white statues stand in the ground-level arches.
Construction began in July 1938 for the planned 1942 world exhibition, and the building was inaugurated unfinished on 30 November 1940. Work stopped in 1943 and was completed after the war. The fair was cancelled in 1941, and the palace stood empty for over a decade before opening to the public in 1953 with the Roma 1953 Agricultural Exhibition.
The 28 statues in the ground-floor arches are allegories of Italian virtues, not of the arts alone: clockwise from the left of the facade on viale della Civiltà del Lavoro they begin with Heroism, Music and Craftsmanship and end with Painting and Military Genius. Each figure stands in front of an arch, six per facade on two sides and eight on the other two.
The building now houses the headquarters of fashion house Fendi and is not freely open to the public, though guided architecture tours are occasionally offered. From the outside, visitors can view the facades and surrounding plaza at any time of day.
The nickname Square Colosseum arose because the rhythmic rows of arches recall the shape of the ancient amphitheater. Although both structures belong to very different periods, they share the same geometric clarity.
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