Elena Luzzatto Valentini. Woman, architect, and public servant in Rome during the first half of the 20th century

This paper investigates the career of Elena Luzzatto Valentini (1900-1983), an architect operating in Rome in the first half of the 20th century. Despite her contribution to the de-velopment of Italian gender equality, her work is not yet adequately appreciated. She was the first graduate female architect in the newly founded Royal School of Architec-ture of Rome at Sapienza University (1925). Her professor, Vincenzo Fasolo (1885-1969), noticed her talent and asked her to be his assistant at the engineering department (1928-1934). Since the academic career did not offer her a stable position, Elena Luzzatto decid-ed to undertake a career as a consultant of the City Technical Office from 1926 to 1958. Her broader interests in modern architectural discourse motivated her to design private residences and social housing. Among her private clients, Giuseppe Bottai (1895-1959) commissioned her to design a villa in Ostia in 1928. With her husband, the engineer Felice Romoli, she received honorable mentions in the public competitions for the design of the hospitals of Viterbo and Bolzano, as well as for the masterplan of Grosseto. Although very active, her professional career was limited in a Fascist male dominated so-ciety, due to her alleged Jewish origins, which forced her to adopt her mother’s last name «Valentini». After World War II, her professional career as an architect bloomed. In the City Technical Office, she distinguished herself designing markets in Rome for low-income neighborhoods. The quality of the interior space she designed is remarkable, fo-cusing on both functional requirements and social interaction as well as on environmental aspects, such as light, ventilation, and adequate sanitation. Her design work was distinguished by mathematically and geometrically defined struc-tures with little ornamentation, implementing the formal potential offered by reinforced concrete. During her long career, she moved between the Italian classical and eclectic tra-dition to the essential and innovative forms of the European Rationalism, which informed her most successful works and her largest project, the construction of the new Prima Porta public cemetery (1945-1950).

Il presente articolo indaga la carriera di Elena Luzzatto Valentini (1900-1983): un architetto attivo a Roma nella prima metà del Novecento, il cui “modus operandi” si è confrontato nel corso del quarto decennio del secolo tanto con la novità del Razionalismo quanto con la tradizionalità del "Barocchetto". romano. Parte dell'ufficio tecnico del Comune di Roma dal 1926, questa progettista è stata però anche responsabile dell'elaborazione di diverse fabbriche pubbliche, fra cui il cimitero di Prima Porta e numerosi mercati rionali capitolini.