State Office Palace

It was built by Cesare Bazzani after the approval from Mussolini, in order to provide an appropriate location for the offices of the Ministries of Finance and Public Works, Agriculture and, in part, Forestry. The Duce's approval of the project for the new state offices provoked an indignant reaction for the new demolitions of pre-existing buildings in Piazza Saffi. The first project for the palace, drawn up in 1933, involved the preservation of the ancient and considerable Monti-Lodi Fè Palace, situated on the corner between Via delle Torri and Via Biondini, but it was then expropriated in order to allow the complete execution of the project. The big portico of the basement, for its size and structural pitch, recalls the ancient Roman aqueducts; the angular body with a sort of massive tower, one floor higher than the rest of the building, is punctuated by pilasters alternated with colored plaster; at the top there was a modest tower, destroyed by the bombing of the last war and never rebuilt. Bazzani measures himself here with the rationalist conceptions, leaving the symmetry and the arbitrary interpretation of the orders and preferring a style between Roman and rationalist architecture.