Marta Nowak

Rome, as the headquarter of fascist Italy, became the place where il Duce was fulfilling his dreams of restoring the Great Empire. The architecture that appeared in the times of the dictator, is as much progressive (it has roots in the early 20th century European Avant-garde art), as it is traditional – through its references to ideas of culture and nation. In the course of the article, I presented the conditions that gave rise to fascist architecture in Rome. Daring architectural designs, connected with widening the streets, construction of new districts, highlighting the ancient monuments, led to destruction of parts of the city (mass evictions, damaged Renaissance and Baroque monuments). Realization of those enterprises was possible only during authoritarian rule – Mussolini had no difficulty either in commissioning the construction of the new, or destruction of the old buildings. At the threshold of the approaching war, Italian architecture performed primarily an ideological function, and secondarily, it fulfilled the material and aesthetic needs of the nation.

The rising interest in the ecological and energy-saving constructions include the whole life cycle of building – starting from materials and ending with remains that a building leaves in the environment. The holistic view of the ecological construction leads to increase in the interest in constructions made from straw. This article focuses on the technology using straw bales in modern buildings. To a great extent the straw bale method fulfils modern, ecological trends because of low production costs, low energy use during production and biodegradation, among others. The article describes physical parameters specific for straw bale and gives examples of current projects of modern buildings made with this technology.