L'altra faccia del “miracolo olimpico”. Antonio Cederna e la battaglia militante per il futuro urbanistico di Roma

The research aims to investigate the intense debate led by militant intellectuals and the newly born protection associations about the impact that the Games of the XVII Olympiad of 1960 had on the city of Rome: the rapid alteration of the urban configuration and the repercussions on the socio-economic sphere of the involved communities are the two main issues. Moving between the architectural, economic, and political levels, the aim is to historicise a controversy that shows how the case of the 1960 Olympics can be taken as a lens through which to read the contextual changes of the economic boom in Italy. Starting from the analysis of the numerous articles of denunciation published in local and national newspapers and from the bibliography concerning the buildings constructed for the Games and the related urban planning issues, the research aims to highlight how, between 1955 and 1960, the city of Rome represented the paradigm of two opposing visions of modernity. In particular, the purpose is to analyse the positions of the militant faction often flattened by the liberalist ‘tale’ within a debate that inflamed the national intellectual scene for at least the two decades following the Second World War.