organisation
In 1926, the "Gruppo 7" ("Group 7") was formed by the young graduated architects from the Milan Polytechnic Sebastiano Larco, Guido Frette, Carlo Enrico Rava, Adalberto Libera, Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini and Giuseppe Terragni, publishing their manifesto in the magazine Rassegna Italiana. The four parts ("4 note") of the manifesto were published individually:
Part 1: Architettura (Architecture), December 1926,
Part 2: Gli Stranieri (The Foreigners), February 1927,
Part 3: Impreparazione, incomprensione, pregiudizi (Lack of Preparation, Misunderstanding, Prejudices), March 1927,
Part 4: Una nuova epoca arcaica (A New Classical Era), May 1927.
The aim of the movement was to modernize Italian architecture through rationalization, meaning the elimination of applied ornamentation, the simplification of floor plans by reducing them to basic architectural types (also referencing building types from Roman and Greek antiquity and the Renaissance: temple, basilica, rotunda, dome, as well as their style elements such as the arcade). However, the citation of historical architectural styles in the sense of eclecticism was consciously rejected.
The Gruppo 7 mounted three exhibitions between 1926 and 1931. Consequently, the MIAR (Italian Movement for Rational Architecture) was established after the 1st Italian Exhibition of Rational Architecture organized in Rome in 1928 by Adalberto Libera and Gaetano Minnucci. Nearly 50 architects from various Italian regions joined. At the 1931 exhibition in Rome, the impact was much stronger, and it became clear that rationalist works were too revolutionary and poorly suited to an authoritarian regime and got dissoluted by the National Fascist Architects' Association on May 9, 1931.
Guiseppe Pagano became the editor of Casabella (Italian architectural design magazine) in 1933, alongside Edoardo Persico. Together, they highlighted the work of the rationalists in the magazine and used its editorials to advocate for the Italian state to adopt rationalism as its official style. While the Rationalists received some official commissions from Benito Mussolini's Fascist government, the state generally preferred the more classically inspired work of the National Union of Architects.
Architects associated with the movement participated in major official projects of the Mussolini regime, including the University of Rome (begun in 1932) and the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR) in the southern part of Rome. Ernesto Nathan Rogers, a member of the BBPR group and a protagonist of Italian modernism, retrospectively pointed out that the alliance with Italian fascism, shared by Terragni, Pietro Maria Bardi, and many members of Gruppo 7, was a mistake: "I think our mistake was based on a philosophical misunderstanding. We relied on a logical conclusion that went something like this: Fascism is a revolution, modern architecture is revolutionary, therefore it must be the architecture of fascism."
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