Casa del Fascio, carabinieri barracks in Asciano, Italy
Casa del Fascio is a building in Asciano situated outside the city walls near the former gateway, distinguished by its monumental scale and exterior covered in travertine marble. The interior contains a cinema hall and other spaces that now serve different functions.
Planned in the 1934 town expansion under podestà Gino Tesi and funded by the 1935 dissolution of the Circolo Operaio, the Casa del Fascio was built to Armando Sabatini's design outside Porta Massini and inaugurated on 27 November 1937 with minister Starace, though the littoria tower still lacks its planned travertine cladding. In 1948 the militarist inscriptions were removed and it became a Casa del Popolo; in 1951 it was converted into a carabinieri barracks, still in use today.
In 1948 the militarist inscriptions and figures on the arengario were erased and the building became a Casa del Popolo; in 1951 it was converted into a carabinieri barracks, a use that continues today. The semicircular arengario terrace was recently glazed in anodised aluminium, and the former cinema entrances under the ground-floor loggia are now walled up.
The building stands just outside the old town walls, on the triangular lot between via Roma and via Trieste, near the site of the Porta Massini destroyed in 1944. It is now a carabinieri barracks, so the interior, including the commander's quarters upstairs, is not open to visitors; the travertine facade, the entrance stair and the brick littoria tower are seen from the street. The stadium adjoins the rear.
The littoria tower still shows bare brickwork, lacking the planned travertine cladding, because the building was never fully finished after its 1937 inauguration. The travertine facing of the stadium wall behind continues the cladding of the main block.
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