Post-crisis: rebuilding a company, a reputation, a community

It is well recognised that when an organisation experiences a crisis caused by a natural disaster,publics are less likely to apportion responsibility to that organisation. This contrasts with crisesinvolving events such as product tampering, accidents or management transgressions where thelevel of organisational control is perceived or judged to be greater (Coombs, 2000, p. 86). In 2012,biomedical company Gambro’s manufacturing plant, based in Medolla, a small town of 6000 in theModena region of Italy, was hit by a devastating series of earthquakes. Damage to the plant hadsignificant and immediate impact for employees, customers and other key stakeholders, as operationsceased in the wake of the earthquakes.This chapter will reflect on Gambro’s crisis management response and their crisis communicationstrategies in response to the earthquakes and the ensuing rumours. An analysis ofGambro’s crisis response shows they acted to counteract stakeholder concerns and leveragewell-established stakeholder relationships. As Coombs (2000, 2006, 2007a, 2007b) makes clear,relationships are central to effective crisis management, and, although stakeholders often view anatural disaster as being removed from the organisation’s responsibility, this concession may not exist in a prolonged recovery period or where the stakeholders face a life or death outcome. Thesewere the very conditions Gambro faced. So, a relational approach can add depth to the attributionalanalysis of such a crisis (Coombs 2000, p. 86). To extend the analysis of crises caused bynatural disaster and Gambro’s crisis response, the chapter will also examine crisis communicationstrategies of similar disaster case studies.The international medical-technical company Gambro, headquartered in Sweden, has 13 productionfacilities in more than 90 countries, and employs more than 8000 people worldwide. Gambrohas operated in the Medolla region of Emilia-Romagna since the early 1960s.

The politics of place : citing and re-siting the Palazzo Littorio, Mussolini’s new Fascist Party headquarters in Rome

In 1934 and in 1937, two rounds of a major architectural competition were held for the Palazzo Littorio, the new Fascist Party Headquarters in Rome to be built in the heart of the ancient city and measuring its architectural worth against the Colosseum itself. Once the second round was announced, foreign and domestic policy shifted towards a more repressive climate and Italy had become an Empire. The processes behind the competitions represent the relationship between architecture and consent, the establishment and development of a ‘Fascist’ style, the Monumentalism versus Rationalism debate and increasing Party influence over artistic expression.

The idea of Rome in Fascist art and architecture : the decorative program of the Palazzo dei Congressi in EUR, Rome

This paper engages with the notion of interspace by examining an understudied and unpublished cycle of mosaics and frescoes destined for the main hall of the Palazzo dei Congressi in Rome’s south-western suburb of EUR, a major building project by Roman architect Adalberto Libera. It first provides a socio-historical and aesthetic background to the building of EUR as Rome’s international exposition of 1942, which aimed to celebrate the achievements of Italian (and fascist) civilisation. It then focuses on the concept of Romanità (or Roman-ness) as a mythical and idealised past that was engaged on a number of levels as a teleological foundation for the advent (and eternity) of fascist rule. This past was adopted, interpreted and made manifest at the urban scale in the master plan of EUR, at the architectural scale in the buildings and at the interior scale in the decorative programs incorporated in each. It argues that the Palazzo dei Congressi allows us to gain further insight into the notion of interspace as it exemplifies this on a number of physical, symbolic and temporal levels. Physically, in the urban space, architectural form and interiors; symbolically, in the content and compositional layout of the mosaics; and temporally, in the use of historical elision and conflation between mythical pasts and idealised present.