Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture

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As far as differentiation is concerned, the Italian tradition was always alien to it.

Except for established institutions in the Arts (Accademie di Belle Arti, Conservatori di

Musica), there has never been a system of non-university tertiary education. Concrete

proposals to initiate such a system have only surfaced in the late 1990s and still remain

mere proposals; in reality, only isolated activities usually classified as post-secondary

schools courses are being carried on. At the end of the century, it is still true that—apart

from fine arts and music—to talk about the Italian higher education system is to talk

about the university.

Even within the university, only one degree, the laurea, approximately corresponding

to a Masters degree, used to exist on a generalized basis (the exceptions were

specialization courses in the medical field). A first change came in 1980 when Ph.D.

programmes were introduced; there are still ambiguities, as the labour market is not very

interested in such degrees, and as a result Ph.D. programmes are perceived as leading

mainly to an academic career, but gradually things are being clarified. A second change

came about in 1990 through a law that has been implemented since 1992: this concerns a

first degree (Diploma universitario), corresponding to completion of a threeyear

programme. In this case too, there are ambiguities: in some instances, the curriculum

almost coincides with the first part of the curriculum leading to the laurea, while in other

cases it is completely separate. The goal in introducing the Diploma was to reduce the

high number of university dropouts (only one-third of the students who start university

obtain the laurea). After five years, in 1996–7, fewer than 10 per cent of first-year

students are entering programmes leading to the Diploma: thus, the situation is changing

very slowly. The guidelines for the renewal of university teaching, which are presently

under discussion, will most likely increase the speed of the changes since universities are

being asked to make the first-level degree a compulsory step in long-cycle programmes.

However, a conflict may be expected in the coming years between the new tendency

towards flexibility and tradition-bound rigidity Whereas a reform law would have

resulted in just one winner, it is likely that in a system of increasing autonomy there shall

be, across the country, universities or even university sectors, where innovation wins and

universities or university sectors where it fails miserably.

Further reading

Satta, S. (1995) L’uomo qualunque 1944–1948 (The Uomo Qualunque 1944–1948), Bari: Laterza,

2nd edn (definitive history of the movement and its leaders).

DAVID MOSS

urban planning

Italian urban planning since 1945 has traditionally been viewed as an enormous series of

errors, failures and missed opportunities. The challenges presented by postwar

reconstruction, economic expansion and then de-industrialization have not been met

with adequate answers at either a local or national level. Urban planning in Italy has

classically been a mixture of urban plans (drawn up by local politicians, council

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technicians, planners and architects) and political negotiation, which has led to

interminable changes, adaptations and delays in all the major cities. Much of this has

been blamed on national delays and (lack of) political reform. The rebuilding necessary

after 1945 was carried out via fascist plans and with fascist planning legislation still in

operation (especially the law of 17 August 1942). As such, the opportunities presented by

large amounts of open space at Milan, Turin and Genoa, for example, were largely

wasted in a series of ad hoc projects aimed at providing housing for immediate needs

rather than rational plans for urban development. Some of the areas left derelict by

wartime bombings were still unused even in the 1990s, such as the huge Varesina

wasteland in Milan.

With the economic upturn, speculation and mass migration imposed with even greater

intensity the need for coordinated urban plans. Milan passed a plan in 1953, but Turin

and Rome only followed suit in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Even these (often

innovative) plans were left largely unfulfilled, with private (and often corrupt) interests

winning out over public need. This period was one of enormous damage to cities like

Rome, Palermo, Turin and Milan. Building speculation and lack of control over

construction and demolition led to the so-called ‘sack of Rome’ and ‘sack of Palermo’

under Christian Democrat (DC) rule and often with corrupt mafia influence, a process

illustrated vividly for Naples in Francesco Rosi’s film Le mani sulla città (Hands Over

the City) (1963). A few isolated voices, such as Antonio Cederna and his Italia Nostra

(Our Italy) movement, founded in 1957, and the magazines Il Mondo and L’Espresso

spoke out amidst a general rush to profit. At Rome, the campaign against the construction

of the Hilton Hotel at Monte Mario (approved in 1958, opened in 1962) became an

emblematic defeat.

Nationally, the opportunities presented by the Sullo reforms of 1962 for control of

urban growth and planning were swamped by a wave of hysterical propaganda from the

Right and a lack of will from within the centre—left government. Similarly, in 1967 any

positive effects of the Mancini laws, passed as a response to the urban disasters at

Agrigento (where illegal housing collapsed near the Valley of the Temples in 1966) and

Florence (massive flooding in 1966 destroyed houses, churches and millions of books in

the national library) were counteracted by a year-long moratorium. In that year, one

million building permits were granted. Further attempts were made to better the situation

in 1977 (Bucalossi laws) and 1985 (Galasso), but by then it was too late.

Italy has no green belts, no new towns and no coherent national planning policy. All

too often, incredible amounts of money were spent on extraordinary but largely

superfluous motorways while whole areas were left without public services or green

space. The lack of parks is a constant problem: Milan has the lowest level of green space

per person in Europe and the parks that do exist are often virtual no-go areas. Genoa’s

green space in its historic centre is measured in centimetres per person. Over large parts

of Italy the landscape has become a monotonous urban sprawl, constructed without any

indication of form or content, ruled by the motor car and commercial interests.

The problems of traffic (there were 26 million cars on the road by 1989) and the

destruction of the urban ‘historic centres’ led to a number of policy decisions in the 1980s

and 1990s. City centres were closed to traffic in Milan, Bologna and Florence. Parking

was made difficult and very expensive. Attempts were made to maintain residents in

these areas (at least in Bologna). However, these policies have not worked. Milan’s city

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centre was re-opened to traffic in 1997. The ring roads of all these cities are centres for

pollution and gridlock. The cities with the greatest problems—Rome and Naples—have

done very little. Another tactic was to decentralize business and industry into so-called

centri direzionali. Naples’s centro direzionale is designed by Kenzo Tange, and is as

incongruous as it is empty. Other cities have simply caved in to conservative commercial

interests. Milan built the extension to its trade fair near to the city centre in 1996–7. The

whole northern part of the city is now paralysed by traffic jams whenever a trade fair is

on. All attempts to decentralize services have met with massive opposition. One example

will suffice: Milan began building its customs and road freight centre outside of the city

in the 1960s. It was still nowhere near to being opened in 1997.

The South is no better off. Illegal private housing, often funded by wages sent back by

migrants or returning migrants, is a feature of every small town and village right across

the South, Sicily and Sardinia. Typically, one or two floors of each house have been

finished, but the buildings are usually unpainted and large metal poles stretch out towards

the sky. The effect on the landscape is not difficult to imagine. Constant amnesties (called

condoni) for these illegal private builders have simply made the situation worse,

encouraging further illegality. Occasionally, this situation comes to public attention, such

as with the illicit housing on the side of an exploding Etna volcano, or the villas built near

precious temples near Agrigento, but in general little is done and many southern

politicians defend the illegal builders. The problem is not confined to housing. One

famous example was a hideous, enormous white hotel built (illegally) on the coast near

Salerno in the early 1970s. Only a campaign by intellectuals finally led to the destruction

of the hotel—which became known as Il Mostro (The Monster)—in 1999. Touristlinked

construction (roads, holidays homes, hotels) has devastated whole regions—Liguria, the

Adriatic coast, northern Sardinia—and threatens the natural havens of Trentino and Valle

d’Aosta.

However, there have been some important and innovative examples of urban planning

in Italy since 1945. Piero Bottoni’s plans for an experi-mental neighbourhood at Milan—

QT8—are perhaps the most impressive examples of urban design from the 1940s. Bottoni

incorporated a hill into the plan, using the rubble from the wartime bombings, which he

named Monte Stella after his wife. The happy combination of green space, mixed

housing, squares and gardens was to remain an isolated example in the city which has

perhaps lost the most through speculation. Usually, however, the most positive

experiences have been located in ‘red’ Italy and in smaller provincial towns. Bologna

attempted to preserve residents in its city centre through planning controls and operated

an innovative decentralization programme. Giancarlo De Carlo’s work in Urbino (1962–

6) and Terni (1969–74) is seminal. Lodovico Quaroni’s designs for Rome and Venice

and experiments at Matera have remained as innovative examples of Italian urban design.

Unfortunately, as with so many plans where Quaroni has had an input (above all his

influential collective plans for San Giuliano at Mestre, 1959), these ideas have been left

largely unrealized. Often, plans have been massacred during the political process, such as

at Palermo where there were six hundred Variations’ to the 1959 plan under the auspices

of mafia-controlled assessors Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino, or at Rome in the 1950s.

Perhaps the most interesting combination of work by architects, intellectuals, urbanists

and industrialists took place at Ivrea from the late 1930s onwards, where Adriano

Olivetti inspired and financed a whole series of studies and projects (for houses,

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factories, schools, individual products and even an asylum) which remain unique in Italy

and probably in the world. The most common charge levelled at Olivetti has been a

familiar one, namely, his utopianism. Olivetti was active in setting up the Istituto

Nazionale di Urbanistica, an important forum for debate and collective pressure. The INU

produced an important Urban Planning Code as a guide for planners and architects.

Debates raged in innovative magazines like Casabella, Domus, Urbanistica, Edilizia

moderna, Edilizia Popolare, Controspazio and La nuova città. Architects, planners and

designers drew up battle lines over neo-liberty, or modernism or brutalism, often through

the wholesale (acritical) importation of non-Italian models. The issues at stake differed.

Often, the argument was about form. Usually there were attempts to come to terms with

the Italian historical tradition, both in terms of urban form and architecture. Often these

debates focused on single, important, buildings, most notably the Torre Velasca and the

Pirelli Tower in Milan, both completed in 1958. While the former, designed by the BPR

group in a combination of traditional and modern styles, was heavily criticized by both

traditionalists and modernists, the latter became a symbol of the unparalleled

development of the economic miracle. Occasionally, the debates became political and

radical, especially in the wake of 1968. Nonetheless, very few of these ideas had more

than a marginal impact on the actual form of the cities in question. The impotence of the

planners and the architects in Italy is far greater than elsewhere. However, these debates

did influence whole generations of students and architects in Italy and elsewhere, and

certain key texts have remained as important reference points: Carlo Aymonino’s Il

significato delta città (The Meaning of a City) (1975), Aldo Rossi’s L’architettura della

città (The Architecture of a City) (1966) and Quaroni’s La Torre di Babele (The Tower

of Babel) (1967).

In the 1990s, money flooded into urban areas for the World Cup, but only left its mark

in two enormous stadiums with bad views at Bari and Turin and the enlargement of those

of Milan (where the grass refused to grow on the pitch) and Naples. Renzo Piano, who

designed the best new stadium at Genoa, was also involved in the ill-fated re-organization

of the city’s port for the so-called Colombian anniversaries. Planners increasingly took

refuge in formulas as the fragmentation of decision making (especially with the setting up

of regional governments in the 1970s) made coordinated planning even more difficult.

Intercommunal plans were replaced by metropolitan cities, which were replaced in turn

by post-industrial scenarios. Thousands of monographs and research projects were

produced, with local or national funding, to investigate the feasibility of plan A or plan B.

Meanwhile, the real decisions were left to the politicians. Inertia and compromise were

the outcome, and Italy’s cities are both contracting and expanding at the same time.

Residents leave the immediate urban centres to move to the provinces, creating huge

sprawling megalopoli which stretch from Bologna to Ravenna, from Naples to Caserta,

from Milan to Turin.

The future of Italian urban planning is marked by opportunity, although much of the

damage done cannot now be reversed. Huge areas are available for development into

parks, universities and housing as industries close down and move out. The debate in

Milan, Turin and Genoa is now dominated by the fate of the so-called aree dismesse

(abandoned areas). Yet, any hope for change in the whole process must be tempered by

the knowledge of the damage done to Italian cities over the last fifty years by planners,

architects and, above all, speculators and politicians. All too often, the lure of the ‘grand

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project’ is too much for local leaders, notwithstanding any possible damage to the fragile

urban environment.

Futher reading

Cederna, A. (1991) Brandelli d’Italia. Come distruggere il bel paese (Scraps of Italy: How to

Destroy the Beautiful Country), Rome: Newton Compton (a selection of urban planning horror

stories collected by one of the founders of the Italian environmental movements).

Muratore, G. (1988) Guida all’architettura moderna. Italia, gli ultimi trent’anni (A Guide to

Modern Architecture: Italy in the Last Thirty Years), Bologna: Zanichelli (good introduction

summarizing a series of architectural debates, followed by a comprehensive review of

individual projects and buildings with photos and maps).

Quaroni, L. (1983) ‘I principi del disegno urbano nell’Italia degli anni ‘60 e ’70’ (The Principals of

Urban Design in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s), Casabella 47 (487/488): 82–9.

Secchi, B. (1984) Il racconto urbanistico. La politica delta casa e del territorio in Italia (The

Urban Planning Story: The Politics of Housing and Territory in Italy), Turin: Einaudi.

Tafuri, M. (1989) History of Italian Architecture, 1944–1985, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

(translation of Storia dell’archittetura italiana, 1944–1985, Turin: Einaudi, 1982).

JOHN FOOT

Ustica

On 27 June 1980, an Italian civilian airliner on regular flight from Bologna to Palermo

fell into the sea near the island of Ustica, north of Sicily, with the consequent loss of all

eighty-one lives on board. The original official explanation blamed it on a structural fault,

but in the years that followed a number of parliamentary inquiries found disquieting signs

of failure to examine relevant evidence, tampering with records and a cover-up at a

number of levels, including the highest ranks of the Italian Air Force. This encouraged a

wide variety of hypotheses to surface, ranging from that of a terrorist bomb in the toilet to

a stray missile. Despite repeated attempts to get to the truth of the matter, the cloak of

‘national interest’ and ‘security concerns’ continued to be used to obstruct investigations

so that, at the end of the 1990s, the case remained unsolved with many informed

commentators crediting the bizarre, but nevertheless plausible, explanation that the

aircraft was accidentally hit by a missile launched in a covert battle between American

NATO warplanes and Libyan fighters.