Abstract

The Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rome is one of the lesser-known works of the architect Marcello Piacentini (1881–1960). Its history is closely linked to the dramatic events of the First World War and to the resulting association of Italian war invalids. The architecture reacts to the self-interpretation of the war invalids as living martyrs and has a meaningful and representative task. In the short period before the consolidation of Mussolini’s fascist regime, a modern style is manifested here, which attempts to combine classicism and avant-garde before the typical abstraction of the thirties. The tradition of Italian architectural history is still present without falling into a monumental formalism.

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