Giuseppe Terragni

In 1938, at the behest of Mussolini's fascist government, Terragni designed the Danteum, an unbuilt monument to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri structured around the formal divisions of his greatest work, the Divine Comedy.

A founding member of the fascist Gruppo 7 and a leading Italian Rationalist, Terragni fought to move architecture away from neo-classical and neo-baroque revivalism.

In a career that lasted only 13 years, Terragni created a small but remarkable group of designs; most of them were built in Como, which was one of the centers of the Modern Movement in Italy.

Terragni was also one of the leaders of the artistic group called "astrattisti comaschi" with Mario Radice and Manlio Rho, one of the most important events in Italian Modern Art.

His brother, Attilio, was the Fascist Podestà (mayor) of Como when the Casa del Fascio was commissioned, and his chief architectural patron was one of Mussolini's mistresses.