“Only a small part of architecture belongs in the realm of art: tombs and monuments.”

Adolf Loos, Architecture, 1910

“Now we are alone. Our best are dead...they are still among us with the best part of humanity: the one that knows how to be alive beyond death. These crosses composed in the golden section are dedicated to you dear friends, Giangio Banfi, Giuseppe Pagano, Filippo Beltrami, Raffaello Gioli, Giorgio Labò, to all the dead in the camps of Germany.”

Enrico Peressutti, Dedica (Dedication) Costruzione Casabella 183 March 1946.

Stephen Leet explores the complicated history of post war Italian Modern architecture, through the design and reception of BBPR’s 1945 memorial prominently sited in Milan’s monumental cemetery in proximity to its antithesis, Armando Violi’s 1924 sculpture mounted on the crypt containing remains of “13 fascist martyrs” who died during attacks on Italian democratic institutions in the 1920s.

In 1945, Milan was recovering from Nazi occupation, partisan resistance and fascist reprisals, arrests and deportations of anti-fascists and Jews, and substantial destruction to the city from multiple allied aerial carpet bombings.

The 1946 memorial presented a paradoxical design challenge to the Milan architects of BBPR-Belgiojoso, Peressutti, and Rogers (their partner Gianluigi Banfi died in Mauthausen concentration camp)-how to both commemorate their former partner, friends and others who died opposing fascism, and reaffirm continuity with the modern formal characteristics they had developed designing fascist buildings before the war.

Stephen is Professor Emeritus of Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis, curator, and designer of numerous exhibits on Italian architecture and design, and author of Franco Albini Architecture and Design 1934–1977, and Le forme della ragione: Marco Albini Franca Helg Antonio Piva architetture e design 1980–1995.

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