An urban taboo

The historiography of the twentieth century has always looked to the architectural production of the last century with different critics, while maintaining uniquely, as an unavoidable prerequisite for modernity, the constant reference to the Modern Movement, considered the only parameter and yardstick for any ‘value judgment’. As a consequence of this vision, an important part of the projects related to the ‘Reconstruction’ has long been marginalized from the debate around the contemporary architecture, superficially labeled as the product of an ideological authoritarianism or the aftermath of a broader ‘nineteenth-century thought’. Monumental projects like Don Bosco district look significant today, especially if related to the historical period they belong, the Fifties, when most of the interventions on the urban fabric were morphologically punctual and autonomous, probably even more meaningful if we consider that monumentality, that characterizes those projects is a feature obtained through the use of architectural typologies usually unrelated with the idea of monumentalism, and thus they shaped a new idea of city different from both the past and coeval experiences.