Current name: Carabinieri Barracks
Original name: Casa Littoria (fascist house), Casa del Fascio
City: Tresigallo (FE)
Address: Via Roma 48
Year of construction: 1937
Designer: Architect Carlo Frighi, based on an idea by Edmondo Rossoni
Clients: Public
Architectural style: Rationalism
Interior visitable: No
Notes: The Carabinieri Barracks (formerly Casa del Fascio) is included in a dedicated itinerary in this guide.
Superintendency restriction – historical and artistic significance.
The presence of the fascist state, both guarantor and admonisher, can be felt in every corner of the city “designed” by the powerful minister Edmondo Rossoni. But it is Viale Roma, formerly Via Edmondo Rossoni and Via Principale, that holds the record for architectural achievements of political significance. In a telegram sent to the prefects in July 1931, Mussolini ordered: “From the beginning of the tenth year, all urban centers of the municipalities must have a street—not a secondary one—named ‘Rome.'” And the “Casa Littoria” of fascist Tresigallo was built precisely on Corso Roma, the urban axis of public functions. The street of parades and marches in black shirts. Of stage sets. That straight street filled with rigid formations when the powerful minister Rossoni harangued the crowd from the balcony of the “Casa del Fascio”.
The building’s beautiful rationalist design, “signed” by Carlo Frighi, the leading engineer for Rossoni’s new Tresigallo, features the usual features of fascist houses. These include the littoria tower and the arengario, construction elements dictated by the party’s need to monitor, represent, and communicate. Frighi specifically highlighted them with a device that wasn’t exactly rational, but was decidedly effective: he adorned their exterior with travertine slabs, contrasting with the remaining plaster. Inside, the building also features a meeting room: a large apse-shaped space with a glass-cement ceiling, the setting for dinners and dances. There are offices, restrooms, and additional rooms. The entire roof is flat. The interesting staggering of volumes gives the building a natural monumentality. Today, it houses the Carabinieri barracks. The building stands out, like most of the restored structures in present-day Tresigallo, for the carefully studied and successful colouring of its facades.
Next to the “Casa Littoria” we find a pleasant fragment of Futurism. It is the sign that indicated the presence of the Bar Roma. The building that housed the bar is set back from the more important “Casa del Fascio.” In this case, the abandonment of the building and the resulting lack of construction in the second half of the twentieth century meant that the stone inscription was saved. On the opposite side of the street is the cinema theater designed by Frighi in 1934. Today it is the Teatro 900.
