STANFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
  
Cover of Building Fascism, Communism, Liberal Democracy by Jeffrey T. Schnapp
Building Fascism, Communism, Liberal Democracy
Gaetano Ciocca—Architect, Inventor, Farmer, Writer, Engineer
Jeffrey T. Schnapp


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2003
312 pages.
$80.00

Hardcover ISBN: 9780804748773

CITATION

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This book tells the tale of the prolific Italian architect, inventor, farmer, writer, and engineer Gaetano Ciocca, whose career took him from the battlefronts of World War I to Stalin’s Russia, Mussolini’s Italy, FDR’s America, and finally to postwar liberal-democratic Italy. Like celebrated counterparts such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, Ciocca was a visionary so confident in his vision of a future in which all aspects of life would be rationalized and modernized that no set of practical or political obstacles could ever stand in his way. Ciocca’s endeavors included the development of “fast houses,” a “theater for 20,000 spectators,” the “guided roadway,” and the rationalist pig farms referred to by Carlo Belli as “Ciocca’s Grand Hotel for Pigs.”

About the author

Jeffrey T. Schnapp is the Rosina Pierotti Professor in Italian Literature at Stanford University and Professor in the Department of French and Italian Literature and the Department of Comparative Literature.