The Architecture of Agricultural Villages for Metropolitans in the Fourth Shore (1934-1940

Abstract

The intensive demographic colonisation of Libya was the result of the ambitious political and ideological programme implemented by Fascism, from the 1920s to the 1940s, with the aim of ruralising and enhancing scantly anthropized territories thanks to the agricultural work of the new settlers who arrived from Italy. In Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, twenty- four rural villages and hamlets were built between 1934 and 1940 by architects who had received the “colonial call”, an opportunity to experiment with the “architecture of the Mediterranean”. Critical analysis of these projects has identified recurring “generating” elements of a landscape, urban planning and architectural nature, which are essential and common to all planimetric layouts even if at a different scale and with more or less articulated and complex solutions, such as the square and the church. For the regime’s propaganda, the rural centre was assumed both as the vehicle to transmit the values and symbolism of strategic politics and as the instrument through which to implement all the interventions to foster Libyan transformation. These architectures were more “narrated” than actually experienced, because the actual “up and running” was limited to a very short time interval. Furthermore, we can say that the rural villages and the system of farmhouses were idealised and almost bucolic places, so much so that the story comes across as merely a late anachronistic attempt.

Keywords

• architettura
• colonizzazione libia
• novecento