Come città dell'infanzia. Architettura, educazione e immagine in due colonie per i figli degli Italiani all'estero a Cattolica e Tirrenia

The present doctoral dissertation deals with two significant case studies of Italian holiday camps which appear as interesting architectural experiences that reflect both the pedagogic and educational programmes of the fascist regime, and the discussion on the constructive and expressive principles that characterize the Italian architecture during the Thirties. The research explains the colony "XXVIII October for the sons of the Italian workers living abroad", today known as "Le Navi" ("The Ships"), built in Cattolica in 1934 and projected by the Roman architect Clemente Busiri Vici, and the feminine colony "for the sons of the Italian workers living abroad" built in 1934 in Tirrenia and projected by the architects Mario Paniconi and Giulio Pediconi. These holiday camps are the sole buildings commissioned directly by the Department in the Italian Foreign Office with the aim of offering a seaside stay to the sons of the Italians living in the colonies who, probably, could visit Italy only one time in their life. Firstly, the work illustrates the most relevant themes concerning these holiday camps, such as the representative intents that the buildings evoked to the children attending the places. Sun-bathing and group gymnastics were some of the rituals in the communal life, where order and discipline gave a precise internal organization to the spaces. Over the correspondence to practical functions, the figures and the forms of the different spaces of the buildings involve the children in an educational dimension. Subsequently, the function of the Department in the Italian Foreign Office and the planning and constructive ideas of the two colonies will be introduced. These colonies were conceived by a precise social project with educational, welfare and therapeutic aims. The elements, the spaces and the volumes create a fixed and theatrical scene of the life, full of ideological, political and celebratory overtones. Finally, the research shows that the relation between the architectural shape of the buildings and the rituals performed by fascist tutors produces an ideal space, extraneous to the external world that could influence the behavior of the children. The plan is to transmit to the children an image of Italy that will remain engraved in their minds once they have returned to their countries. In these projects there is the intent to transmit the image of "italianity" abroad. The way to do this was to plan for them a scenery which contains all the architectural elements of Italian cities. The holiday camps are proposed a sort of microcosm that appears as an "evocation" of the places and the spaces of Italian cities. The buildings appear as veritable "cities of childhood".