Well I want to thank Alan for

this terrific introduction which actually
covers some of what I meant to say

shortens a little bit my presentation
which won't be a bad thing because

decided to dedicate a large
part of this talk to

my own research work when
she invited me to speak.

Asked me to do two things essentially
talk to you about my research and

also reminisce a little bit about Georgia
Tech of the time I was a student there.

So I'm going to start with the hardest
part which is my research and

will be going through the work of
that I've been involved in that grew

out of the conference on Walter Benjamin
an architecture that we organized in Paris

last year and this will be my contribution
to the volume of essays that will

be appearing on that
from that conference and

it also should be coming out soon
in the American theory Journal.

Grey Room.

After that I will then very shortly
take fifteen minutes to talk

of way about what I remember at Georgia
Tech was like when I was a student and

show some of the new
rationalist projects that

made fun of a few seconds
a few minutes ago.

OK the title of this presentation
is the techno statics of shock.

Only an Italian fascism.

Nature's characterization of Wagner's
musical drama as an art of the sex.

Nothing but if sex is perceived at any
price might also be used to describe the.

Lyrical art of Mario C O N E himself
a lifelong Wagner enthusiastic and

a leading propagandist for
the fascist regime.

As a critic Mario to me.

Kelly noted in fact everything that
need to deplored environments are pros

that Grandy Locrian it's their
endlessly repeated light motifs their

use of every available means to maximize
the impact of the work on the audience

can certainly also be found and
seen only as political.

Which for

more than twenty years established
the dominant tone of fascist propaganda.

But if Sidonie is
Wagnerian it is as I will

try to show girls indeed deserve
a close critical scrutiny.

It is to Walter Benjamin's reflections on
shock and the destruction of experience

that we must turn to understand the
continuing relevance of this an endearing.

But arguably most important
Italian artist between the wars.

For bench.

Can we maybe focus should
I focus here a little.

OK.

For Benjamin a general or

general actual sea of experience as he
called it was a condition of modern life.

He traced its origins to capitalist
commodification to the right and

to the rise of a mass culture based
on Technological Reproduction whose

affects were particularly
evident in the press.

As he put it and

I quote If the purpose of the newspaper
was to allow the viewer to incorporate

news as part of his own experience
it would be an unqualified failure.

But its goal is just the opposite and

in achieves it to separate
as much as possible.

The news item from anything that might
connect directly to the live reality of

the readers and quote.

Sidonie is propaganda art
is seen especially in

the many hundreds of political
illustrations he made for

most of in his daily paper you popular and
associated journals like them.

Leave East on the right.

Exemplify these new conditions of
reception and wish the tendency towards

brevity that was the driving force
between behind the press combined with

a newspaper sensational format to screen
out the living reality of an event.

Much the same could be
said about the grandiose

propaganda installations that see only
made in the twenty's and thirty's.

Their dark monumental ready recycling
the same remarkable conciseness the same

ability to exploit the dramatic
effects of primal symbols like

the fashion of the masses and
the leader of the masses of.

That we find in his political drawings.

Both are paralyzed the mode of
communication that is Benjamin noted and

I quote replaces older forms of narration

based on experience with information and
information with sensation.

For Benjamin of course the language of
journalism including what he called

the architectural journalism of Sidonie
installations was only the most visible

symptom of a more profound modern
day quote unquote barbarism whose

roots lie as much in the long history of
capitalist expansion as in the trauma of

the Great War when as he put it in the
famous passage in the narrator and I quote

you could see the soldiers returning home
from the front grown silent not richer but

poorer incommunicable experience and
quote to which he added significantly and

the stream of photo albums of the war that
came out shortly after was anything but

experience communicated directly
from mouth to ear and quote.

Benjamin's reflections on the war
closely power door laws in minimum aura.

As the American critic Tyrus Miller notes
both recognize that the Great War had

accelerated dramatically the trends that
throughout the one thousand nine hundred.

Affected only a fringe of quote types and
quote Like for example in whose works

Benjamin had recognized the first signs of
a more general breakdown of experience.

After the war the ever duce ability of
trauma to normal categories of perception

had panic penetrated more deeply and

widely proliferated in almost as if by
contagion in a process that had and

I quote Benjamin again altered overnight
in ways previously thought impossible.

Our very image of the external world and
quote.

Such profound perceptual shifts affected
as much as the work of artists and

writers of the into war period as they did
the quality in the texture of daily life.

The feeling that social reality had
somehow become quote unquote less real

that Miller sees as characteristic of
late modernist literature for example.

Is not unrelated to the mood of seen
only zero in the empty pattern paintings

of the industrial suburbs of my land as
landscapes ruled by impersonal forces.

Both reflected the emergence under
the impulse of the press and

other media of wider social phenomena such
as the proliferation of what Miller calls

contagious and
memetic practices like role playing

a role playing slogans ways
of speaking and dressing

with selecting a general de authentication
of social life during these years.

Such mass cultural phenomena the first
signs of a society of the spectacle in

which as good a board would write forty
years later and I quote him here.

Everything that was directly lived has
moved away into a representation and

quote or
comment in most western countries.

In Italy they were nowhere more evident
than in the obsession with symbols

gestures and other external forms

on which fascism based its static
even more than political appeal.

So you don't use propaganda.

It was an essential element in this drive
to reconstruct the subject's relation to

the external world.

His installations offer a unique insight
into the way new forms of perception

as Benjamin noted could be pressed into
the service service of ritual values.

In what follows I would like to look I
would look a look at the most sensational

of Sidonie propaganda installations
the exhibit of the fascist revolution or

far for short.

Focusing especially on the relationship
between the work and the viewer.

Like Benjamin described in the poetry
about where I use the experience of shock

as the key to decipher and

the quote unquote secret architecture
of Sidonie is work of which we can say

that like body awareness it involved
a high degree of conscious planning.

Or special interest as we shall see
as house you're only strove to create

an oceanic feeling a boundary loss that is
several historians of recognize recently

was a distinctive feature
of the fascist experience.

No less central is house you
only use new materials and

techniques to construct an ideological
narrative was very power was proportional

proportional to its ability to
evacuated a living reality of an event.

In considering seen only as work in
this way I do not discount the cultural

stylistic and
psychological dimensions that have been

the subject of a great deal of writing
especially by the French are critical.

My purpose is rather to highlight
the structural forces at work and

some of the first media events
of the twentieth century.

Forces that see it only as propaganda art
displays in a particularly clear way.

However against the tendency of
many contemporary scholars to

see seen only in terms of a timeless quote
unquote tradition of Italian classicism

I argue that his work was based on
a clear set of journalistic principles

that its central impulse was the
experience of shock and that its goal by.

That of the emerging culture industry was
to promote the massive reconfigurations

of human perception that was the driving
force behind the society of the spectacle.

Recognized today as the most
important political and

cultural event of event Tainio the far
was the longest running propaganda

show ever mounted by
the fascist government.

Its opening on October twenty
nine nineteen thirty two

was the culminating event of over two
months of national celebrate celebrations

marking the tenth anniversary
of the march on roll.

And here we see the day with
Mussolini marching down.

At the head of us.

Of a procession in a kind of
a recreation of the Imperial

process of the Roman emperors

marching down towards the center
of Rome organized by the future.

Ambassador to Berlin the you know all
fairly assisted by the who went on to

play a leading role in the state cinema
industry the show took almost four years

to prepare and involve no less than
twenty among Italy's youngest and

most progressive artists and architects
working under Sidonians directions.

Coming at a particularly favorable time
for the regime when you saw in his

popularity at home and
abroad was approaching its peak.

The confidence of the organizers
reflected also in their embrace of new

techniques like put them on.

Sound Recording photographic
enlargement as we will see.

The exhibition help to focus a wide range
of issues related to the fact to a fascist

style quote unquote an art and
architecture becoming a launching pad for

a new generation of artists in architects
some of whom like the sculptor

Martino Marini became
a leading personalities

in European art after the war.

By far the most successful of all
the propaganda event staged by the fascist

party the show was intended to be
seen as words and I quote an hour.

Offering a faith that your comrades
hand down to the new ones so

that enlightened by our martyrs and
heroes they may continue the heavy task

of building a Fascist Italy
indeed during this two year run

the show effectively became the principal
site of fascist worship around the world

attracting an estimated four million
visitors including among others.

Paul Valery as well.

Pound Perrier they called was yea and
under regime.

They recorded reactions ranging
from extreme disgust for

she'd to eke equally extreme
enthusiasm for pound and local.

As a principle inspiring force behind
this event see only already had a certain

experience in this field dating
back to his collaboration's

with the Moonies architecture
of On The Move on a series

of press pavilion showcasing
the publications of the popular.

Different versions have been exhibited
at the theater come to an aria

the Milano nine hundred twenty eight and
at the international

exhibit of the press in Cologne in
Barcelona nine hundred twenty eight and

nine hundred twenty nine respectively.

These international events that
introduce you to only to some of

the newest techniques of
exhibition design and

seen especially in the spectacular
work of L E C ski whose U.S.S.R.

pavilions for the first time had made
a systematic use of photo montage.

At the same time it was here
that see only the skull or

the power of architecture to
underscore the presentation to a ritual

spatial sequence as seen in the last and
best of its cover collaboration's with

mood seal was its only
article in moments of.

The plan shown here.

To the spaces of the royal
palace to construct

a carefully orchestrated path punctuated
by enlarged architectural fragments

in their metaphysical tone recalling seen
only his own paintings of the period

such as eco eco Torrie of nineteen
twenty eight on the right.

Of the.

Focused sufficiently focused these images.

Don't look focused and.

The planning of the exhibition
over a period of several years

need not detain us very long.

Suffice it to say that after at least
three separate proposals would put forth

by mood still and the architects and

regal debut and Antonia Valente
the Organizing Committee finally

settled on a team of young designers
chosen and directed by Sidonie.

The reasons for this choice so
obvious from the final plan.

On like the earlier proposals which would
have maintained the central focus of

the plot so.

With side with a side rooms opening on
to the Central series of major holes.

I'm losing my pointer here.

On this ingenious scheme
established a single path

beginning at the entrance continuing along
a series of fifteen peripheral rooms.

Each one narrated in a moment in
the history of fascism and concluding with

a grand procession down to me down
the buildings main axis of symmetry.

So there you see the entrance and
there the longest session and

around all the fifteen rooms we call

the history of fashion revolution and
from that point of grand procession

down towards the shrine of the martyrs
which was the last room of your vision.

I need to be able to recover my pointers
so that I can read here though.

I need some technical help.

And if not I will.

I know it should be
showing on my computer.

I was.

Showing here but I don't want to
show there I want to show you here.

So I can scroll down.

So if you if you can't be fixed.

I'll just move on to the written text.

Was there with me a second.

This so.

So I just explained
the arrangement of the space.

Of the exhibition.

And I think it's interesting to note
is that this rigidly sequential layout

was evidently meant to evoke
something like a cinematic experience

like we president been and we see it.

Ski's us I saw a provision in Cologne
which she only would certainly have seen

while working on the Italian
pavilion nearby.

Unlike Elysee skis montage like
assemblages However the narrative here

unfolded in a strictly
linear manner downplaying

the possibilities of peripheral vision.

So as to maximize the impact of
the show on the viewer in an even

more telling contrast with the ski
The plan also reflected a definite ritual

structure which was made clear in
the inauguration ceremony with the duty of

presiding over the hymn sung on
the front steps of the pullout so

the swearing of the oath in the entrance
atrium or slow procession through

each of the fifteen historical rooms and
a concluding ritual event in the great

circular hall the shrine of the mark of
the martyrs in the back of the building.

Such a ritual structure was clearly
meant to exploit the force of religious

traditions in Italy capitalizing on deeply
embedded narratives in order to recast

fascism itself as a new and
secular religion of the state or

point to which I would return
at the in the conclusion.

Indeed it is interesting to note
that whether by conscious design or

not the ceremony of inauguration
replicated exactly the literal.

G. of the Catholic Mass with
the intro to this the hymn song and

the opening the credo or
the oath of allegiance.

The symbolic reenactment of the Passion of
Christ which sometimes would take the form

of a procession around and around the
church and a concluding ritual of whom you

have communion the exhibition's
ritual emphasis

itself a textbook case of fascisms use of
technology in the service of ritual values

as Benjamin noted could also be seen
in the poster like temporary for sad.

Evidently inspired by Sidonians and
most years Barcelona pavilion and

designed by the young rationalist
architect have to leave it up.

The formal procession through a screen of
giant metal fast she's standing several

meters from the wall might have evoked a
limb and all function of a triumphal arch

with the substituting for
the giant order of columns in Rome.

Needless to say the reference would have
been directly to the nearby classical

runes a main point of attraction for

visitors to the Capitol in this way
the facade expressed a major theme of

the Seine all celebrations going between
fascism and Italy's Roman heritage.

But the most striking feature of
the design was the way it merged together

the themes of war and technology one
perceptive you were the poet the naked he

called it a war machine sharp in cutting
and quote an aspect forcefully conveyed

by the fashion which were made of bolted
copper plates and by the razor sharp axes.

The entrance consisting of
a barrel vaulted corridor with

narrow metal bands filtering
artificial light presented itself

as a poetic metaphor in praise
of technology and electricity.

The entire show which should be noted uses
used electrical lighting to the almost

complete exclusion of natural sources
labeled as a status sizing approach

to technology with its focus on special
effects of a function brings vividly to.

Benjamin's remarks on the connection
between status in Islam and

the cult of cult of war.

And on the difference between a left wing
and a right wing attitude to technology.

As you noted in one thousand
nine hundred five and I quote.

The fascist theory of art has
the mark of the purest asceticism.

The Art of War and bodies the fascist idea
of technology freed from by now would

use but the poetic side of technology
which the fascist upholds against

the prosaic conception of the Russians
is also its lethal side and quote.

It is also interesting to see how the but

as designed sought to include the bodies
of the twelve soldier Apostles standing in

front which is a guidebook
described as human decorations.

The pastor of a pastor of attention

mimic the shape of the the metals of
which alluded to the soldiers helmets.

While the blades related
to their bayonets.

Such dramatic contaminations between
an animated architecture and a mechanized

human body were characteristic
feature of the show as we shall see.

Indeed much the same can be said about
the facades or relation to the masses of

Blackshirts marching by it on
the inauguration day on the right.

Can be seen on the left of the image.

The blocks of people who are no
less a part of the total

image being conveyed in
the building itself.

It was through this kind of imagery which
is Benjamin noted employed human masses

as integral elements of the composition
that fascist architecture trace the magic

circle around the work and the viewer
drawing them both into a complete

other world in which art
appealed as a totality.

Before we examine the largest and more and
most important sequence of rooms designed

by Sidonie to commemorate
the march on Rome.

The first two rooms
are highlighted in this and

this slide if you can see that these two.

With our march on Rome this is assault on
into an order commemorating the Do J. and

this is a gallery of a flashy
kind of grander recapitulation

of the ten years of
the fascist revolution.

Those were the rooms the only designed but
before we look at them.

It's useful to take a look at the room
that directly preceded them which was

there and all which we can see here.

It was supposed to illustrate the events
that led up to the march on Rome or

what kind of fascist with Allah ji was
called the insurrectionary period.

Photographs of the space
we can see on the right.

Convey a feeling of lightness in
airiness in which the bombardment and

bombardment of optical signals
express the excitement and

confusion of the insurrectionary period.

Tehran used diaphanous screens to display

large graphic compositions producing
a vivid interplay of light and shade.

His concern with what the guidebook called
transparency and interpenetration was

particularly evident in a systematic
use of reflecting materials.

Like the shiny black with no young floor
or the copper and aluminum constructions

on the diagonal screen or the civil way
across against all the lighted ceiling.

All of them served effectively to
dissolve the ground the walls and

the ceilings as firm datums producing
a sensation of weightlessness

of literally floating in space that was
well described by the architecture critic

at the out of a pair of sequel.

As a fantasy a terrible Seesmic fantasy or
seismic fantasy.

Wins.

The sources of terror and is designed
deserves special attention that included.

Interestingly enough a number of construct
of his precedents the spatial arrangement

centered on the diagonal screen
upholding one arm of a giant X.

silhouetted against the lid sealing was
likely based on Melnyk of so U.S.S.R.

pavilion of one thousand
nine hundred five.

Displayed a similar contrast between a
diagonal path and a rectangular enclosure

and which also displayed across
the motif over the open passage.

The screen itself on the left acting
as a kind of a tooth parallel

surfaces acting as both a billboard and
a showcase was probably derived

from the nest leg of a and Zurich of nine
hundred twenty eight which is only a few

kilometers distance from
Terra news home town of Como

the giant photo montage which took up
the entire left wall of the room showing

an immense crowd merging into a field
of hands raised in the Roman salute

was probably based on a poster by
the Russian constructivists Gustaf.

The three spiralling turbines crossing
the composition from the lower left White

would recall in the couple of years lot of
the karate for those who would weep which

contained a similar image talking
about these three spiralling her by

this supposed to represent the effect
of the duties speeches on the crowds.

Such borrowings testifying
to tyrannize avid

interest in the works of European
modernism in that he would have seen and

illustrated journals like as a bad
luck were far from neutral however.

Thus it is interesting to note for
example that unlike the cause was yet

around use the turbine to Link
technology with modern warfare.

Of photographic enlargement in
the center of the photo montage

included a line by the poet
just a way to do cheek.

Which read one local
song well out of water

main door which translates when with
blood the wheel is set in motion.

Made arrests turn the whole
composition essentially

into a military stick
glorification of human sacrifice.

Its violent imagery we're calling
Benjamin's remarks about how and.

Quote Benjamin here imperialist war is a
rebellion of technology which collects in

the form of human materials the claims
which society as the night it instead of

draining Rivers society directs the human
stream into a bed of trenches and quote.

In much the same way and that's a matter
of study of the room on the left

shows out around use Melnyk of style
going to the arrangement to articulate

a narrative spatial sequence consisting
of a large launch a juvenile corridor or

a semi circular space behind
the screen as you can see here.

And a.

Progression of vertical panels on
the left wall to represent the narrative

in its three main stages of
organization struggle and

conquest the lone column
in the far left corner.

You can see here.

Was no doubt a reference to eat all
about Bo's infamous column of fire of

the cologne ninety four call the scorched
earth campaign against the farming

co-op's of the north that marked
the start of the insurrection

still according to a fascist
sort of mythology.

The notion of a rhythmic and narrative
modulation of space would become a leading

theme around use later work including his
proposals to the parts of Utah a few years

later as well as the Dante one project
of nine hundred thirty eight which is

Tom Schumacher as shown was based on the
textual structure of the Divine Comedy.

For all its richness and intricacy However
the Salas main purpose was merely to

prepare the viewer for see Tony's
grand finale offering itself as both

a lead up and for oil for the monumental
dramatic sequence that would follow.

Indeed a glance at the overall plan of
Sidonie is rooms we see on the left.

Suggest a very different
approach from Terra news

where the latter starts fragmentation and
dispersal Sidonie aim for unity and

concentration stressing
mass over line tack.

Towel over optical qualities.

This cultural emphasis could be seen of
what the guard would call the overall

plastic development of the rooms in which
the mural decorations moved gradually

from flat surface to increasingly
bold relief to architecture.

The two to slow and dramatic pace of
the narrative underscoring the transition

from one Optical to attacked our register.

So you don't his intentions
are also evident in the division of

the first room into two parts and in
the choice of a diagonal movement across

rather than around the first rooms which
served effectively to propel the viewer

through a succession of five rather
than four increasingly large

series of spaces by creating
this distance separation here.

You make five spaces.

Each one.

Larger than preceding one
a kind of spatial crescendo.

The vestibule which was the first space as
you went to room from which the view on

the right is taken was marked off from the
rest of the room by a massive wall hung

about three meters from the ground rising
like a curtain on the final act of

the drama it invited the viewer to pass
under it like a spectator onto a stage.

The movements of constrained to open
space dramatized also by the mist like

produced by the light filtering through
a silk screen hung from the ceiling.

We call in the steam curtains
used in Wagner's operas.

The strive to mark to make the public
into an actor was also clearly dictate

also clearly dictated the principal
characteristics of the large photo montage

of the march on Rome which took up
the entire wall facing the viewer as he or

she entered the this step onto the scene.

The repeated rows of lifesize soldiers.

Shown marching towards the capital
like the pilgrims march to Rome

in Wagner's overture to town.

HAUSER.

Will likely drawn from
the very same photo albums of

the war that epitomized the Benjamin
the denial of lived experience.

For the viewing public however the most
immediate reference would have been to

itself the entire image reflecting
the stream of visitors crossing the room

towards the exit or fundamental feature
of Wagner's theatre productions as

a door no recognised was in fact
the incorporation of the audience as

an integral element of its effect was
a technique to see only used to actively

to heighten the degree of identification
between the viewer and the scene.

Technically the photo montage was no doubt
inspired by the city's work in Cologne in

Barcelona on the on the left
which were the first time made

a spectacular use of this medium.

Sidonie is added to the however was to
exploit the illusion ism of the photograph

to create an impression of
a spatial extension of the room and

to draw the viewer forcefully
into the space of the picture.

With the magic unity the tiered
composition anticipating the great mural

cycles of Sidonie would
produce a few years later and

the evident concern with
the seamless narrative continuity.

Even to the point of racing
by hand the sharp lines

dividing one image from the next
all express to miss a mythical and

even an archaic conception of
the photograph that was basically our

OZ with Elysees key is much more
objective in documentary approach.

It is certainly no accident that the guy
books systematically shun the term photo

montage and savor the medieval izing
description quote photo mosaic and quote

nor is it surprising that the only would
eventually abandon this medium which you

perceived as being too commercial in favor
of more per more permanent materials.

Aside from photography the main decorative
device used in the four rooms was

a large meal relief you.

Usually combined with a typographic slogan
and clearly intended to reproduce and

amplify the percussive force of
the artist's own political illustrations

of two examples on the right.

The concealment of the material
construction of these releases itself

a good example of the stylistic
hybrids that I don't know was so

critical of in a gardener.

Heighten the fetish fetish
like quality of the figures

at the same time that the just
a position of image and word.

That was typical of your own is
a political drawings evoke the magical

concentration on sight or sound made
possible by photography and radio.

Before we examine these mural
constructions that cover the walls of

the Truman a question from
flat surface to architecture.

It is useful to consider some
of the many surviving studies

which were a rich source of
information on pseudo news intentions.

More than a dozen remain
in a wide range of media.

Taken together they present
a bewildering a variety of images with

very few similarities
with the executed scheme

a fact that has puzzled
a number of historians and

has led some of them to play up to see
it only as talent for improvisation.

On closer inspection however it
appears that scene only his main

concern was less with
the images themselves and

more with the placement of
gestures along the viewer's path.

To gestures or especially dramatic.

Diagonal you see here.

The colors of these slides
are also very different from my.

Saw the diagonal that we see here.

OK.

It is a recurring dramatic sort of
gestures that we find in these studies

and the second is the way.

Here here.

Or here.

You notice.

Come back to that.

Both were common and so your own is work
and indeed and much of the graphic art of

those years of first could be found in any
number of earlier list regimes where it

served among other things to counteract
the static geometry of the page in this

case however an added connotation would
have been obvious to most viewers for

the diagonal gesture was also
that of the Roman salute

which are just recently been imposed as
a required custom for young recruits.

This was just the latest in a whole
series of stylized practices

like the pastoral man or the Roman
walk for example that was supposed to

redefine a code of behavior of
the family of the new fascist man.

Similar the precedents for
the wedge were religion.

Ranging from Marx Samus
photograph of a bullet in flight

of eight hundred eighty S. to Luigi
emotional lows evolved nine hundred eleven

to see it on his own seem to see the light
where among the olive nine hundred eighty

the meaning of the wedge in this case
as the most concise way of representing

the after striking a blow.

Was best summed up by Sunni and self when
you compare the exhibit in itself to and

I quote a giant wedge planted into
into the heart of the capital

to sweep away the last remnants of
resistance to modern art and quote.

Taken together and consider in their most
externalized in just cruel character

the force of the diagonal and

the pen penetrating power of the wedge
were clearly complimentary as may be seen.

Also from Sidonie as poster for the for
which brings them together in one image.

In reality however they were meant to be
played out successively and with Macaulay

alternating life the tonal and
Domino dominant motifs of a musical score.

If we now to.

Turned to the rooms as built it is
easy to see how these two essential

image gestures to borrow
a term that I do ordinary used

in describing Wagner's music
the term image gesture.

We can see how these two essential images
gestures embedded like subliminal signals

in the figures of the narrative structure
the entire sequence from beginning to end.

The barrage began with a large relief
representing the downfall of liberalism

with as a Roman dagger cut in a heavy
red chain followed by a needle and flag

with a bold white characters La Mar just
to Roma representing the ascent of fascism

conceived like all the other reliefs
as unframed an integral with a wall so

as to place the viewer inside
the space of the picture.

They activated the basic rhythm that would
structure the entire sequence downward

thrust of the first playing and of playing
off the sideways sweep of the second.

Even before entering the second room.

The wedge reappeared and

the entrance in the violent thrust
of the letter or of the word Roma

that seemed to cross the wall from
side to side the force of the image

recalling the image like the machine
like precision of the printing press.

Projecting over the viewer as he or she
moved into the room it framed the view of

two warriors raising the standard of
victory lifted up high above a pedestal

there stone light texture soliciting the
viewer sense of touch as well as sight.

The vigorous diagonal emphasis echoing
that of the eagle in flag in the preceding

room gave way towards the exit to another
forceful push downward similar to that

of the dagger in the first room the
massive typeset characters of Mussolini's

first words as prime minister weighing
down heavily on a single sturdy peer.

And what I'm trying to point
out is that these are gestures

that are meant to be perceived so.

Consciously as subliminal images were not

literally meant to recognize
the wedge in the art for example.

It just implicit.

It's present subliminally subliminally so
to speak.

These same two gestures distilled
to their bare essence and

as if we doubled in strength could also be
found in the sun only don't know already

obtained by encasing the columns of the
rotunda of the open lot so with a massive

granite like was representing nothing less
than the opposing oceans of Mussolini

who is more than life size statue
dominating space from the top of a high

image at his feet a steel
cubicle cell enclosing

like a tabernacle a faithful reproduction
of his office popular d'Italia.

Their sect of Ness was due in no small
measure to the powerful structural

rhetoric through which see only dramatize
the effects of load and support as seen

for example on the end wall where
the massive square characters of the word

Dukes seem to be physically supporting the
upper project team portion of the wall.

The first gesture was prominently display
over the Yangs it and the last in

the two crossing diagonals of the gigantic
Roman numeral ten symbol of the Fascist

the central cantilever dramatically
over to the two masses appears.

The second took its place over the two
side doors where in direct in a direct

transposition of scene there's either
like where I'm on the synthesis of

the World War a massive
triangle appeared as if forced

energetically between the top of
the pier and the lintel of the door.

The overall effect suggesting
something like an epic battle of

conflicting structural forces was well
summed up by my get into the when

she wrote of Sidonie is art that it's
only law is struggle and quote in.

We know also that the exhibit
did Starman and character to

translate from the French we're the best
of our Italian painters of today.

Roni who has given to the exhibition
the authority of his high talent and

his proud powerful and tormented soul or

so in a talent at a tumultuous and
truly Michelangelo esque and quote.

Sidonie understanding of how architecture
could be used to create a direct and

bodily identification with the scene was
nowhere more evident however than in

the last of his rooms
the gallery of the fashion

here in a grandiose recapitulation
of fascism see ROIC history

ten colossal past pilasters lined
the hall five on either side.

Each symbolized one year
of the fascist revolution.

Looming gigantically over the viewer with
their oblique projections they were not on

reminiscent of Mel Nichols Rusalka of club
in Moscow of nine hundred twenty eight.

A more direct reference however
would have been to the Roman salute.

Structurally encoded in the shape of
the new fascist order the pilasters frame

the image of Italy on the march which
could which took up the end wall

executed by Ruggeri a well known and

respected sculptor it presented itself
as a nearly exact replica of one of seen

only as cover illustrations of the journal
Gerard here from a few years earlier.

Ruggeri scrupulous adherence adherents to
see only sketch reflecting the coercive

relations underline the idea of a total
work of art of the most work which

is a door not noted anticipated tyrannical
top down methods of the culture industry.

And here it's important to emphasize
that with Jerry was a sculptor

with a very particular personality
in a very particular style

that was nothing had nothing
to do with the law and

he was simply used in this case to to
make a sculpture out of Sidonie sketch.

OK a little bit as if we were.

Asked.

Say Tom Mayne to rebuild the high
extension to the hard news.

RICHARD MYERS exactly which admires OK.

Like Libras facade but in a more powerful
because less figurative way the gallery

was obviously meant to be a backdrop for
files of salute the militia men.

Of America exchanged between
architecture in the human body and for

size by the pilasters monotone
relentless repetition

of a single theme of the diagonal.

Indeed a curious feature of the gallery
was precisely the absence of the second

theme in the preceding room as we
have seen the diagonal in the wedge

follow each other with unrelenting
regularity the orchestration of shocks and

power shocks stage to
an escalating rhythm.

Each time appearing in a more
sculptural and tectonic form.

Reviewing briefly the sequence from
the first room will recall that the real

rhythm had opened with a downward thrust
of the dagger followed by the diagonal

movement of the eagle which gave way to
the dagger like thrust of the letter R.

which followed which was followed again by
the diagonal emphasis of the warriors and

the downward movement of
the exit in the second group.

Also we saw the doubling of
the seams of the diagonal motif and

of awareness alone in the north in each
case the orchestration of gestures

followed the regular and
escalating rhythm of a B. a B. a B..

Like.

Like an arm being raised and lowered
repeatedly in the act of striking a blow.

At first sight because he appeared
to contradict this rhythm.

Instead of returning to the theme of
the wedge as one might have expected

after passing under the giant
Roman numeral ten of the zoning

it insisted on the single and
varied theme of the diagonal.

Like everything else and
c only said in this effect was.

Hardly accidental.

For one thing the gallery as insistence
on the diagonal was clearly intended to

create something like and not an F.
not a suspension of time

the lack of closure contributing for
the Morse of the dark.

We were mantic.

Of the space which might
have recalled ancient

precedents like the Temple of
level seen both for example.

But even more important was the function
of the Galleria to prepare the viewer for

the final scene of the exhibition
the shrine of the martyrs here.

The theme of the wedge would return
with the greatest possible force in

the gruesome image of a cross thrust
into the ground and surrounded by a pool

of blood in musical terms we can say
that the girl area acted like a problem

got to the music to draw out deliberately
the Dominant key in the next

to the last note in order to intensify
the crashing force of the closing finale.

This feeling was even more pronounced in
the exhibition by the fact that the girl

idea was separated from
the fine by a small traverse

room as you can see here on the planet.

This is the gallery.

This is the shrine.

This is a small room that
was separated the two.

And that was made up with
a kind of affected simplicity

by Leo long uneasy illustrator
due to his biography this

thought this small transitional
space marked a further gap or

a moment of silence as a guide book
called it before entering the final room.

Designed by Libra and
the strange designer Valente by clearly

inspired by Sidonie own political
imagery the shrine of the martyrs

was based not surprisingly on the most
famous site of Christian martyrdom

which also hired an iron cross standing
in the center of the arena to commemorate

the blood of the martyrs talking
about the Coliseum and right.

Libras militaristic rendering of the theme
with a bolted copper plate similar to

the fashion on the facade was evidently
meant to annex this religious symbol

to fascisms own iconography Indeed
it is of more than anecdotal

significance that just a few months
before the opening of the exhibit

Mussolini used the pretext of having
to carry out archaeological excavation

to have the cross in the Coliseum removed
only to have it we wrecked it as we have

seen at the heart of the exhibition
of the fascist revolution.

Nor is it surprising that no
official representative of

the Vatican ever attended the far.

No other example shows better the struggle
over symbols the syncretism the migrations

and displacements that we find
in events like the far which.

Through which fascism like many
other political ideologies

constructed its own discourse
of self legitimation.

And in fact much the same could be
said about the obscure funerary right

that the shrine was
supposed to allude to and

which the Assemble mourners this is
a specific fascist wish which was in which

the assembled mourners would gather in
a circle in a circle around the body of

the dead comrade the eldest among them
would call out the names of the dead and

all those present would answer
in unison on presenting or

hear the word present and recalling the
litanies of a Catholic Mass was repeated

ad infinitum on the six metal
rings surrounding the cross and

now I really have to say these
colors off and I don't know why.

This is normal that an act
presentation will do this because

it is really doing a deep injustice
to see it only works this way.

Low.
The facade the architecture

of the shrine exploited the magical
effects of new materials and

technologies like metal and
electrical lighting.

It's a lose lose or mystic effects made
possible by Valenti's long experience as

a stage designer and this case and
that in special effect was provided by

the sound recordings of the songs of
the markers which could be heard.

Echoing from a far.

Likely due to the voice on the radio
the martyr's could be heard but

nothing in the sensory split
between sound insight image and

word that was part of the magic of
photography and radio was evident here no

less than in the juxtaposition of images
and slogans recurring throughout the show.

To offer three concluding remarks and

boy this is really I'm sorry
that this is a bright red.

OK this is a bright red and
this is a deep green.

One.

To offer three concluding remarks and
to return to my opening comments.

First of all it seems essential to
emphasize the social function of the as

far as a representative right.

Barring a term here from Durkheim
sociology representative Wright

intended to articulate a new
consensus around fascism as a secular

religion this overriding imperative
largely determine the show's symbolism

its ritual organization and

its representation of the public as
a protagonist in a mythical narrative.

It also explains the importance
of Wagner's methods which

as Jonathan Cleary notes
were all about and

I quote the transformative effect of
the transformative effect that could be

obtained through the collective experience
of a ritual communal event and quote.

The ear for

also shows however that the quote rational
production of collective greenlight States

as Querrey aptly describes Wagner's
project was neither obvious nor simple.

The question of how to.

Lead the audience towards an all
sciatic immersion into the sea

to experience what Freud Freud called and
I quote the sense of and

in dust in this soluble bond of being
at one with the world as all and

quote was one of the many issues
inherent in Wagners project the far

shows how see only approached this issue
with purpose not hesitating to borrow

ideas from his ideological rivals
constructivists if necessary and

lifting a great many themes
from the Catholic Church.

Of all the techniques that are only
used to this it to this end.

Certainly the most important and
innovative as we have seen was the idea of

a rhythmic repetition of blows and
coded in the figures of the narrative and

carefully calibrated in
the tone formal register and

intensity at the heart of this orchestral
strategy which as nature would

say you know about Wagner used
music as a means to hypnotize

we see it all is unique understanding of
the effects of shock in both the print

media as well as in more recent
feels like photography and radio or

sensitivity that had as little to do with
the history of Italian classicism as it

had everything to do with Sidonie as many
years spent in the world of journalism.

Even more central to see only techno
aesthetics of shock however it was

the capacity of architecture to instill
more deeply because less consciously

the structures the ceiling
the gestures and

slogans through which the new fashion
subjectivity was supposed to be displayed.

To a degree only possible for someone with
a figurative sense ability of a painter.

She only used architecture for

his capacity to immerse the viewer
in the scene and to focus his or

her attention hypnotically others on
the signal like motifs of the narrative.

Alternately see all these work shows
how through the cyclical repetition of

gestures architectures mode of tactile
reception could be used in the tactics.

Of marked mass mobilization to break
down the subject's resistance and

in train a whole series
of automatic responses.

It was certainly no accident that Benjamin
saw architecture's mode of reception

as kind as a canonical model for the way
new media could be used to exercise.

What he called Cold War covert
control over the audience.

Finally the far shows how
the forms of distracted perception

could be used to construct powerful new
narratives that both responded to and

intensified the subject
psychic fragmentation.

We see this most clearly in the images
of war they were one of the most

true serving disturbing features of
the show their endless repetition

certainly not unrelated to see on his
own experience of the battlefield and

to the war neurosis that were
common during those years.

Indeed the same you ality that Freud had
observed in the symptoms of shell shock

the same closing up of
the ego on the one hand and

blind immersion into the scene of trauma
on the other would seem to be the central

mechanism of the aesthetic experience
generated by the far where passionate

identification in the drama unfolding in
the sequence of rooms took the form of

an endless series of hammered blows
violence was staged repeatedly and

relentlessly in both the percussive
design of the rooms and

in the version of events represented in
the narrative culminating as we have seen

in the polls the oceans of violence
literally a bloodbath of the last room.

It is in this sense that one could
argue that the satisfaction afforded by

the oceanic feeling and there's no doubt
about the fact that the oceanic feeling

does provide some satisfaction including
escape acidy to compensate in some way for

the area nations of modern life was only
made possible by separating the public

even further as a vicarious
participant at once.

Immediately present on the scene and you.

That removed from it.

It was in this way the Sidonians
work both destroyed and

we built this relationship to the viewer
first by eliminating any possible

distance externally through three Africa
or in other more invasive devices and

then by recreating it internally
as a spectacular distance

through the objectification of the viewer
as a mere element of the decor.

Nowhere is this destructive instead of
sizing double logic of the spectacle more

evident than in the incessant replaying
of what we might call the image

of the far synthesis centers either
live where I'm on the our way which was

produced Interestingly enough in September
of one thousand nine hundred eighteen.

Well serial only was still
mobilized on the northern front.

Recurring insistently in all its archaic
mutinous like a compulsive repetition

of a traumatic dream it
stands as a figure for

the destruction of experience
to which Benjamin alluded to.

When he wrote in the conclusion to
the artwork essay and I quote here.

But in German.

Parea moon whose let there be art and

death to the world says fascism expecting
from war the artistic gratification

of a sense of perception that has been
fundamentally art altered by technology.

This is evidently
the consummation of lot of our.

Humankind which in Homer's time was an
object of contemplation for the Olympian

gods has now become one for itself itself
alienation has reached such a degree that

it can experience its own destruction as
an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.

This is a situation of politics that
fascism is rendering a static the free

forces of humanity must respond by
politicizing art and so that my text.

Very poorly illustrated I'm afraid.

If you like talk about.

Other subject.

Briefly.

If I could get if I could get some
way to control what goes on here is

that I got a guy I got a back.

OK.

OK I'm going to take.

OK well.

I knew it was going to be a little
bit of it was it was going to

put myself at risk.

Pull up some of these images
from the past these images.

These are this is my first I.D.
as a student at Georgia Tech.

Young anarchist arriving just arrived
from Rome from the University of Rome.

I won't talk about my undergraduate
year because there was so terrible.

It was so awful that I was I don't even
want to talk about I will say that when I

moved when I emerged at the lowest point
was when I was when I was fished out of

the the swimming pool of
Georgia Tech as part of

the ground proofing course that
everybody had to take at that

time I was literally the lowest
part always moment and

my undergraduate career but
when I emerged.

Literally emerged from that
dark period to graduate school.

It was like a transformation
from Knight today essentially

teachers like Alan Balfour Bob Seger

ist who who are gallant who made me.

Gave me a sense of
the importance of what I was.

Doing and and gave me a great deal
of encouragement which I really

needed at that time because I had
a problem of self-confidence.

So I have here.

To embarrass not only me but maybe even
Alan my first project with Alan Balfour.

Well it shows me and

shows me completely under the spell
that all the all see right.

The fear of the world.

Except for the archers Yes I guess
I got everything right except

the sort of the Poetic.

Their family kind of
quality of Rosie's work and

I totally I totally missed
that apparently here.

I am but this was my first project
with four short Charette for house and

I was followed by the extension
to the high in Atlanta.

If you'll recall Alan.

This is.

This was seen we had Richard Myers
come and look at the work and.

And I was blown away when he when
he actually actually liked it and

he said that it reminded
him a shingles museum.

In Berlin.

So I had a definite proof at that point
that Alan was was a good professor

then I have images of projects
I did with Bob C. West

was also very important for me someone who
was on my same sort of wavelength in a way

maybe less important as a design teacher
and more as a spiritual kind of mentor.

This was a two week project we did in
Cambridge during the summer program in

Cambridge in England and

it must have been I think in one
thousand nine hundred one or so.

And I believe it was the last
architectural project I did

at Georgia Tech.

Tried to think of the things I
have learned at Georgia Tech.

As a student.

And I would think I would say that
there were like three main things and

Alan mentioned the first and
that first the first thing.

And what I mean learned I mean in the
Benjamin Ian sense something that you work

in incorporate as part of your own
experience not a piece of information.

OK Something you incorporate as part of
your own your own experience first was

that architecture is always for good or
bad a political act essentially.

And that this that deep.

We had all sort of belief was what
really directed my own research

in history that is focused on
the bad guys like the fascists.

That is ation of politics on the one hand.

And on the more interesting
more positive more

utopian I guess work of the situation
it's in the fifty's and sixty's.

So that was certainly one important
lesson I learned this the other

lesson was that architecture
was something much bigger and

more important than just a job or
profession.

And in fact that it was something like.

When incurable disease in a way.

Once you catch it.

You can never get rid of it and that
is why even though I went on to way to

study for seven long years to get a Ph D.
I never really stopped designing.

And even when I was
working on my my thesis.

I was doing competition
entries like this one for

the Japan architect competition or
just doing projects for the fun of it.

This was a supposed to be available for
a for

a friend who had just bought
a parcel of land and I am.

And also I think the word business notion
and this is kind of bad habit of drawing

and designing even though I'm supposed to
be specializing in history even and so

even as I am surrounded by
colleagues that in ministration

who tells me I'm a specialize in
publishing or whatever this sort of.

Desire to to practice architecture
is also reflected in the work that I

do with my wife in Paris which
I like to show very briefly

not because these
are excellent projects but

because these are examples of the work for
what I do with my

wife as an example of how you can have
a fulfilling kind of practice that doesn't

make you make a lot of money in fact
it doesn't make you make any money but

it is there it is an example of
of architecture done simply for

the pleasure of it and
these are extensions that we do.

And here we really
the colors are very good but

anyway extensions that
we do to houses in and

around Paris their work spaces
like this one for Taylor.

That that also kind of mediate
between the ground floor of

the house which is high up
about a metre a metre and

a half above the ground level and
the ground level of a garden and so

we have a kind of series of steps that the
kind of platforms down to the garden level

that are common example a common
common feature of these additions

some as I mentioned a work spaces
This particular is a is a library or

a music room somewhere living rooms
that we create for these houses.

There are spaces that we that
we provide to families usually.

Engines who have escaped from Paris to the
suburbs believing that they were going to

find a lot of space and these in
the suburbs in fact discovering that

miniature power as they bought
is incredibly claustrophobic and

very very small and so they're in
chronically in need of space and

what we provide is more generous
sort of modern kind of spaces

that are extensions of these
houses usually take a side lot

between the House and
the limits of the property.

Sometimes they overlap partially like in
this case with the facade of the house.

So steps are kind of an important aspect

of these projects because they
all step down to the garden and

they create a kind of a connection
communication with the garden.

Sometimes we have interesting
kind of opportunity and

the connection between the new and
the new so the opening for example between

the old in the new part in this case
was done behind an existing staircase.

OK that case becomes a kind of
a gap that can be can be sort

of expressed as a sort of a void between
the old building and the new building.

Sometimes when we're working
on that we have to say we

deal with them very very narrow minded and
very kind of prejudiced kind of

bureaucrats that tell us what we do and
cannot do very strict sort of regular

regulations that you have to respect and
then you only can really get around.

If you operating in a backyard someplace
that's not visible on the street and

in this instance is an example of
something that we were able to do in

a backyard and we would never have been
able to do on the front street of these.

Because.

Towns outside Paris and
it's a wooden facade that

opens includes mechanically it can be
completely open or partially open.

As you can see there.

Sometimes the extensions go down
vertically to the basement level and to

the back of the house towards a view was
that we can have their all available when

we're working on the back of the house
again we can create large openings and

we wouldn't be allowed for the front in
this case we created a large opening that

is a view of the fabulous view from
the air towards Paris and the Eiffel Tower

you get the sort of view this is a meadow
you get a sort of you of the city from.

From there.

So this is not this is this is not really
an extension it's more like an opening up

in an incorporating areas that
were formerly just basement areas.

I would become a dining area and
a kitchen.

More to have a very cool spaces are often
often what we what we end up with and

all these sites with bridges and
mezzanine.

And see here.

Dining areas Valar spaces that
open directly into the garden

in this case here on the left with
a smaller sort of second Kitchen and

Bar that can be used for
parties or social events.

So these are just examples of the kind
of work that we do which is very limited

we use no computers we do everything
by hand and we made models also by hand

but it's work that that feeds my addiction
to architecture we can say that I have and

I continue to have even as I as I
continue to do my work as a historian and

basically my writing on actual history so
that was a second point.

The third point I wanted to say that
I learned from from my my experience

as a student here was I would call it.

And in fact it's something that Alan
referred to I think I would call it

the kind of C. feeling of freedom
of thought and expression.

OK it sounds kind of by now ordinary but

it is I think fundamental and the thing I
remember most fondly of the years that I

was here as a student were the incredibly
intense sort of theoretical debates that

we would be having with the teachers and
the car and

colleagues at the time on all sorts of
issues sort of the no holds barred.

We talked about everything.

I would argue with dog about
US imperialism you know and

I was still well and still whole but
I feel that the climate

that we had at that time at that time
where we were George attacked for

some reason and there was this incredible
sort of energy that had somehow for

some reason sort of converged
into this place at that time.

It was it was very important and

it contrasts I think with the kind
of timidity that like we find

today a kind of shyness and not wanting
to really say where you what you think.

And also which I think is also
partly the result of of a very

oppressive presence of
a corporate management and

business culture on sexual education.

Which has more or
less killed off a lot of living things and

that has to be resisted.

So so actually there's another

interesting parallel though because
at the time when I was student here.

Times were hard.

There was no work.

And that really made the school into a
place where there was like an inventor and

intellectual effort.

The constant sort of the thinking and

speculating and debate and
discussion which is

in part the reform reflection of the kind
of economic situation which was not good.

Taken and used as an opportunity to
kind of rethink the discipline and

it seems to me that there is
an opportunity to do that again.

Here in the good nations we have.

Which are not good economically.

There's an opportunity and

a responsibility I think to architecture
discipline in a way that's more generous.

That's more inclusive.

That is more ambitious.

It's more humanistic and say that
kind of model of corporate model that

we've sort of that's been drilled
into us for almost thirty years.

Constant bombardment.

So those are my comments I'd
like to take any questions.

You know.

All right.

And the problem really is a shame
because you're only as a painter and

his colors are fabulous.

Here we go.

Why did you have to pay to get there.

Well that's a long.

That's a long answer.

I don't know what I would even start how
can I install Why am I interested in

seeing only well it's
a kind of fascination.

It's a kind of fascination but
yes I think we deal with it and

trying to understand it.

And I think it's you know his work went

well and seems seems interesting
in the sense that it's a very

clever sort of use of techniques
techniques that are really not political.

I mean in fact you know nice politics of
course he was a big fascist but I mean

what you could imagine a show done the
same way with very different narratives.

Was interesting other techniques
that he's used developing

which are the same that are used.

You know in media events become even
more and more important in present but

how do you deal with with anything
that is a kind of an intoxication.

You try to you try to rationalize it try
to understand it quite a comprehensive.