Casa del Fascio, Former Fascist Party headquarters in Santa Croce, Florence, Italy
Casa del Fascio occupies a whole block between Via Verdi, Via dell'Ulivo, Via dei Pepi and Via dell'Agnolo. The L-shaped main body on Via Verdi and Via dell'Agnolo has three upper floors, with kneeling windows at ground level and square windows above, between a stone base and continuous string courses. A two-storey glazed volume holds the entrance; the six-storey office wing runs along Via dei Pepi.
Architect Raffaello Fagnoni designed this palazzo in the 1930s to serve as the local headquarters of the National Fascist Party during Mussolini's regime. The structure stands today as an architectural record of that political era in Italian history.
The building was commissioned by the Fascist federation as the seat of the "Dante Rossi" district group, and the city press in 1940 praised its "dignified, clearly Florentine flavour" and "grand appearance, though in simple modern lines". The planned second wing, meant to hold a gym and cinema-theatre, was never built after the war changed the political situation.
The building is an active tax office (Ufficio tecnico erariale) on Via dell'Agnolo 80, not a museum, so the interior is generally not open to casual visitors. It fills an entire block between Via Verdi, Via dell'Ulivo, Via dei Pepi and Via dell'Agnolo, and the three bodies can be compared from the public streets. The rear courtyard, once a tree-lined court open to the neighbourhood, is now a parking and residual space.
The rear courtyard was originally a tree-lined space open to all residents of the Santa Croce district. After the 1959–1960 extension by Raffaello Fagnoni, it was built over and now serves as a leftover area and car park.
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