URBAN LANDSCAPES OF DICTATORIAL REGIMES

“What are the ethical implications of architects’ roles in extremist political contexts?”

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Examining the Italian fascist regime’s execution of the “Third Rome”, this thesis studied the ethical implications of architects’ roles in Mussolini’s political establishment through urban and architectural design. Architects’ choices and their ethical implications were evaluated across the Urban Plan’s three phases - design intentions, construction methods and effects on Rome’s communities and the city’s political symbolism. This resulted in a framework of cause and effect of architectural choices within totalitarian systems. 

Architecture’s ability to shape public perception becomes an effective tool for power systems to exert both sustainable change or oppressive control. The research addressed the literature gap among the ethical function of architecture and the employment of architecture by power structures, by combining the two fields of study as means to determine the extent of architects’ roles’ ethical implications and how these may perform in totalitarian contexts.

The analysis of architects’ choices across the three phases uncovered architects’ difficulty to operate independently of totalitarian regimes due to centralised control of resources and radical political agenda among other factors. Results identified that regardless of the extent of architects’ ethical considerations, within these contexts they will see their designs reinterpreted or conditioned to fit the required ideological rhetorics to support and establish the regime.