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052-0835-00L 2 Credits BSC , MSC D-ARCH

Summer School: Difficult Heritage - Mapping Rome's 1930's Colonial Corridor and its Afterlives

Lecturers & Examiners: Giorgio Azzariti
VVZ CR n/a

Last Updated: 2026-06-03 00:07:21

Abstract

Through on-site documentation, students will reconstruct how the 1930s fascist territorial script was implemented and mediated. The final outcome will be a collectively authored atlas of ‘difficult heritage’: which traces, today, have been monumentalised, which have been normalised into everyday infrastructures, and which have been obscured or renamed.

Objective

Across five days, participants will collectively investigate Rome’s mid-1930s city-to-sea axis as an equipped corridor through which Fascist rule sought to territorialise power. They will be provided with archival material gathered by the organizers, a preliminary photographic survey carried out by Davide Curatola Soprana, as well as a reader with iconographic material, a selection of texts and the summer school schedule. From this starting point, students will work across disciplines, combining on-site visits with documentation through different media (photography, video, sound recordings, drawings, writings). The week will culminate in a collectively authored exhibition on this “difficult heritage”. Beginning from a reconstruction of what of the city-to-sea scheme was actually built, what remained partial, and what never moved beyond plans and administrative acts, the display will make legible and critically assess what has been monumentalised, what has been normalised into the everyday, and what has been obscured, renamed, or displaced, even as it continues to influence the urban fabric of contemporary Rome. The final day will feature a public presentation and discussion of the summer school findings via a small exhibition. The instructors will accompany the full process – lecturing, leading visits, moderating seminars, and supervising production and editing. Students’ tasks will include: (i) building a working understanding of the axis as a political project; (ii) conducting fieldwork through sketching, photography, filming, note-taking, and mapping; (iii) translating observations and findings into a critical representation (maps, visual essays, short films, annotated drawings, or text-based dossiers); (iv) participating in lectures, seminars, and peer critiques, and contributing to the editing and assembly of the collective exhibition; (v) taking part in the final presentation and public discussion.

Resources

Lecture Notes

The days will be divided mainly into two parts: in the morning, there will be short presentations by the team and external guests, and several sites will be visited, moving from the north of Rome down to the sea. In the afternoon, the work will focus primarily on setting up the public exhibition.

Literature

A reader will be provided to students beforehand.

General Information

Language
English
Levels
BSC , MSC

Examination

Type
ungraded semester performance
The final outcome will be the set-up of a public exhibition at the Istituto Svizzero (Villa Maraini), in Rome.

Course Components

Type Title Time & Place Hours
seminar Summer School: Difficult Heritage - Mapping Rome's 1930's Colonial Corridor and its Afterlives
Summer School (Dates: 30 August - 5 September 2026. Place: Istituto Svizzero (Villa Maraini), Rome – Italy. Costs: CHF 300.- (Travel costs excluded)
No time listed 50 h semesterly

Offered In