La città militare di Roma a La Cecchignola e i piani per la crescita industriale della Capitale nella prima metà del XX secolo

This study examines in detail a previously unpublished architectural project concerning the industrial-military pole of Rome Capital of the Kingdom of Italy before the Second world war, later defined as Military city of Rome in La Cecchignola. The project, kept at the Istituto Storico e di Cultura dell’Arma del Genio in Rome, was carried out by the General Directorate of the Engineers - Project Office of the Ministry of War, and it is compared with a series of urban and legislative measures issued in the period between the two world wars in the framework of the “Piano per il Risorgimento Economico di Roma” (plan for the economic resurrection of Rome). Overall, the same project reveals a first-rate military estate operation and underlines the importance and complexity of the new design of military cities, then under construction throughout Italy. From this emerges a different picture of Rome’s architectural history on the verge of the Second world war, as compared to what was commonly understood until now, with particular regard to the modernization and industrialization implemented in the military field. So, the study refutes the prevailing hypothesis in the literature about the settlement of La Cecchignola as a housing complex for the workers of the 1942 Universal Exposition (E42), in which military units of divisional level were later established when the works for the E42 began to slow down, immediately after the conflict’s start