Deadline to Submit: June 1, 2026 The Oral History Association Council calls for proposals from OHA members to create a new asynchronous oral history teaching module via Udemy. The course and the themes for the essential sessions to be available in the curricula are as follows: Archiving & Preserving Deliverables Interviewing Legal & Ethical Issues […]
Smithsonian InstitutionNational Museum of African American History and CultureO:ice of Digital Strategy and EngagementRequest for Information (RFI): 03.12.2026 RFI Responses are Due By: Friday, March 27, 2026 This Request for Information (RFI) is for informational and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation or request for proposal. The anticipated period of performance is […]
The Oral History Association Publications Committee invites you to a virtual panel with authors Stephen M. Sloan and Mark Cave discussing their co-edited book Oral History and the Environment: Global Perspectives on Climate, Connection, and Catastrophe, published by Oxford University Press. This event launches a two-part conversation series connected to the 2026 OHA conference theme, […]
An look at Architecture as propaganda.
in Architecture, History, Politics | December 17th, 2025
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they declared the beginning of a “Thousand-Year Reich” that ultimately came up about 988 years short. Fascism in Italy managed to hold on to power for a couple of decades, which was presumably still much less time than Benito Mussolini imagined he’d get on the throne. History shows us that regimes of this kind suffered a fairly severe stability problem, which is perhaps why they needed to put forth such a solid, formidable image. The IMPERIAL video above explores “the evil genius of fascist design,” focusing on how Hitler and Mussolini rendered their ideologies in art and the built environment, but many of its observations can be generalized to any political movement that seeks total control of a society, especially if that society has a sufficiently glorious-seeming past.
Fascism’s visual language has many inspirations, two of the most important cited in the video being Romanticism and Futurism. The former offered “a longing for the past, an obsession with nature, and a focus on the sublime”; the latter “worshiped speed, machines, and violence.” Despite their apparent contradiction, these dual currents allowed fascism “a peculiar ability to look both backward and forward, to summon the glory of past empires while promising a radical new future.”
In Italy, such an empire may have been distant in time, but it was nevertheless close at hand. “We dream of a Roman Italy that is wise and strong, disciplined and Imperial.” Even Hitler drew from the glories of ancient Rome and Greece to shape his own aspirational vision of an all-powerful German civilization.
Hence both of those dictators undertaking large-scale Neoclassical-style architectural projects “to bring the aesthetics of ancient Rome to their city streets,” including even muscular statues meant to embody the officially sanctioned human ideal. Of course, the builders of the United States of America had also looked to Roman forms, but they did so at a smaller, more humane scale. Fascist structures were designed not just to be eternal symbols but overwhelming presences, intended “not to elevate the soul, but to crush the individual into the crowd and promote conformity.” This, in theory, would make the citizen feel small and powerless, but with an accompanying quasi-religious longing to be part of a larger project: that of fascism, which subordinates everything to the state. For the likes of Mussolini and Hitler (an artist-turned-politician, as one can hardly fail to note), aesthetics was power — albeit not quite enough, in the event, to ensure their own survival.
An look at Architecture as propaganda.
in Architecture, History, Politics | December 17th, 2025
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they declared the beginning of a “Thousand-Year Reich” that ultimately came up about 988 years short. Fascism in Italy managed to hold on to power for a couple of decades, which was presumably still much less time than Benito Mussolini imagined he’d get on the throne. History shows us that regimes of this kind suffered a fairly severe stability problem, which is perhaps why they needed to put forth such a solid, formidable image. The IMPERIAL video above explores “the evil genius of fascist design,” focusing on how Hitler and Mussolini rendered their ideologies in art and the built environment, but many of its observations can be generalized to any political movement that seeks total control of a society, especially if that society has a sufficiently glorious-seeming past.
Fascism’s visual language has many inspirations, two of the most important cited in the video being Romanticism and Futurism. The former offered “a longing for the past, an obsession with nature, and a focus on the sublime”; the latter “worshiped speed, machines, and violence.” Despite their apparent contradiction, these dual currents allowed fascism “a peculiar ability to look both backward and forward, to summon the glory of past empires while promising a radical new future.”
In Italy, such an empire may have been distant in time, but it was nevertheless close at hand. “We dream of a Roman Italy that is wise and strong, disciplined and Imperial.” Even Hitler drew from the glories of ancient Rome and Greece to shape his own aspirational vision of an all-powerful German civilization.
Hence both of those dictators undertaking large-scale Neoclassical-style architectural projects “to bring the aesthetics of ancient Rome to their city streets,” including even muscular statues meant to embody the officially sanctioned human ideal. Of course, the builders of the United States of America had also looked to Roman forms, but they did so at a smaller, more humane scale. Fascist structures were designed not just to be eternal symbols but overwhelming presences, intended “not to elevate the soul, but to crush the individual into the crowd and promote conformity.” This, in theory, would make the citizen feel small and powerless, but with an accompanying quasi-religious longing to be part of a larger project: that of fascism, which subordinates everything to the state. For the likes of Mussolini and Hitler (an artist-turned-politician, as one can hardly fail to note), aesthetics was power — albeit not quite enough, in the event, to ensure their own survival.
