Luminous architecture around the mid 1930s: some italian cases

The relationship between architecture and artificial light dates far back in time. Light has variously united utility and monu- mentality. The novelty, which was to affirm itself in the 1920s to 1930s, consisted of the collaboration between opaque ma-terials and illuminated and illuminating translucent surfaces. These also, sometimes, constituted the structure of buildings. Several elements contributed : the diffusion of reinforced concrete, the improvements which, also in Italy, now concerned vitreous materials, from glass block to Vetrolux, or Securit ; and the refinement of a true Illuminotecnica science, the study of the quality of light and its most efficient uses. In the modernisation of Italian society, and in the importance assigned to architecture by Fascism, artificial light played a significant role. Important architects and engineers of Rationalism and of Futurism, such as Libera, Terragni, Mazzoni, Nervi Valente, use light as an actual element in constructions, adding visibility in the urban scene to a public works policy with which the regime intended to affirm its presence.