Materiali tradizionali nei palazzi della Roma Moderna: il cantiere del palazzo delle Finanze

The main focus of the essay is the use of traditional materials (stone and bricks) in the Palazzo delle Finanze, a ministry seat of the new Italian State, designed by Raffaele Canevari and built between 1872 and 1881. The building was located in the area of greater development of the city centre, and was one of the first and largest buildings built in Rome, after the city’s appointment as the new Italian capital (1871). The project described a building with a modern and innovative structural system, composed by an internal partition in industrial metal, cast iron for the punctual vertical supports (columns) and iron joined to perforated bricks for the horizontal partitioning (brick floors), while the external envelope had to be in load bearing masonry. The prefabricated metal profiles were the most innovative element of the building, even if they had been deliberately kept hidden under the surface, in compliance with the prevailing formal logic of the new State. However, the analysis of archival documents and drawings, also reported by the construction company Società Veneta, explain some constructive aspects of the building, relating to the enormous traditional vertical structures made of solid or light masonry. The study wants to identify and describe the main construction phases that took place in the most important years of the construction, between 1872 and 1876: the execution of the excavation for the foundations set-up, the construction of the foundations and the construction of the elevations, up to the second floor, the building of the upper floors. The text intends to explain the transformations to the project of traditional materials and highlight how the choice of materials and structures to be built was strongly influenced by the progress of the construction site, by the nature of the place and the foundation soil, by the difficulty of supplying metal materials, and also from the often non-innovative approach on the part of the construction company.