Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana site features

The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana is a white cube standing alone on a raised platform in the middle of a wide, modern, low-rise quarter, and the first thing that registers is the regularity: six storeys of arches, all the same size, all the same spacing, with nothing else on the face at all.

The arches are the building. Each is a plain square-edged opening with a semicircular head, cut straight through a flat wall of travertine — no columns, no mouldings, no cornices between the rows. The repetition is total: 216 of them across four identical elevations, so whichever side you approach from, you see the same building.

The stone is pale and the shadows do the work. The travertine is near-white and slightly pitted; in sunlight each arch throws a deep black void, so the facade reads as a chequerboard of light and dark rather than as a surface.

Writing runs round the top. Cut into the flat band above the uppermost row of arches, in plain capitals: "Un popolo di poeti di artisti di eroi di santi di pensatori di scienziati di navigatori di trasmigratori".

At the base, the only figures. Two opposed staircases climb to the entrance level, and at their sides stand the four sculptural groups of the Dioscuri, men with horses in white marble. Under the arcades of the first order, standing in the openings themselves, are 28 marble statues — single figures, roughly life-size, one to an arch.

And nothing moves. There is no ticket desk, no queue and no entrance for visitors: the building is the headquarters of the Maison Fendi, and the doors at the top of the stairs are office doors.

The 216 arches

The Colosseum's tight sequence of arches, repeated fully 216 times across the four identical elevations.

The inscription

At the summit: "Un popolo di poeti di artisti di eroi di santi di pensatori di scienziati di navigatori di trasmigratori".

The Dioscuri

Four sculptural groups by Morbiducci and Felci, at the sides of the two opposed staircases.

The 28 statues

Under the arcades of the first order, representing arts and human activities celebrating the Italic genius.

The travertine cladding

The structure was conceived in masonry but realised in reinforced concrete and faced with slabs of travertine, for reasons of economy and time.

The film history

Background or quotation in Roma città aperta, L'Eclisse, Otto e mezzo, The Belly of an Architect and Notte prima degli esami.

The Fendi headquarters

The Palazzo houses the headquarters of the Maison Fendi, with the Direction and the offices.