La Sapienza University Campus

Piacentini was appointed by Mussolini to design the masterplan for what is now known as 'La Sapienza' (Università di Roma) campus. He designed the main building, but many young Italian architects of the day contributed to the scheme: Arnaldo Foschini (Monumental Entrance), Pietro Aschieri (Faculty of Chemistry), Giuseppe Pagano (Institute of Physics), Giuseppe Capponi (Botany & Pharmacology), Gaetano Rapisardi (Faculty of Law), Gio Ponti (Institute of Mathematics) and Giovanni Michelucci (Mineralogy & Geology). The masterplan was intended to include "very Roman" buildings in brick and travertine, but the young designers used these materials primarily as cladding on buildings constructed using the latest building technologies and stripped of ornament in a Roman interpretation of international Modernism. The complex stands in contrast to the EUR district of several years later, as it represents Fascist modernism yet still retains a human sense of scale.