Beyond Renaissance in Florence - The Nuovo Archivio di Stato, an endless controversy

The Florentines are famous for being polemical and disagree on everything, since the time of Guelphs and Ghibellines. This side of the citizen character has historically been very negative because many initiatives end up in nothing due to discussions and disputes and, if they are successful, they still leave a trail of endless polemics.

The Florentine archives are an immense cultural heritage, given the historical importance of the city, and one of these controversies, even if now distant, concerns il Nuovo Archivio di Stato (New State Archives).
Founded in 1852 by the Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany, it is "rich in 600 collections, for a total of over 75 km of documents, from the eighth century to the present day, of the most diverse types: correspondence, diplomas, illuminated manuscripts, statutes, drawings , nautical and geographical maps that bear the historical memory of the political, social, cultural and artistic events of Florence and Tuscany, making the State Archive of Florence a point of reference for researchers from all over the world " (from the official  website of the State Archives). In addition to these funds, there are enormous quantities of administrative and economic materials, land registers, bequests, notary archives and much more.
The original site of the Archive was in the Uffizi Palace along with the museum, where many materials were kept in the underground deposits and in the lower floors. Everyone knew that the Arno periodically flooded the city. In every times it had happened and as a testimony of this there are commemorative plaques that date back to 1500 and even earlier scattered around the city. Inevitably, the 1966 flood caused enormous damage. Despite the precedents, no one had foreseen it. This did not concern only the Uffizi, the National Library, one of the most important in Italy, is also on the Arno riverbank with all its underground deposits full of books and documents. There, too, it was a catastrophe.

In the 1980s it was finally decided to transfer the Archive and build a new, modern and safe location, in the area between Piazza Beccaria, Viale della Giovane Italia and Viale Amendola.
Sure, the history of the place boded nothing good already. The city walls used to pass through the area until 1865, they were demolished in those years as part of the urban plan by architect Giuseppe Poggi, linked to the "Florence capital" project. The place was gloomy and "cursed" because from 1531 to 1759, immediately outside Porta alla Croce (still standing today in the center of Piazza Beccaria) there was the Prato della Giustizia, where the death sentences were carried out by beheading, right next to where the State Archives now stands.

After the demolition of the walls, in Poggi's urban plan the land up to the Arno riverbank was intended as a public field. Instead, on one part were immediately built barracks for the Carabinieri, which still exists. The other part remained a field until 1936, when the Casa Italiana del Littorio (GIL), the fascist organization of young people aged 6 to 21, was built. The structure was immediately called Casa del Balilla, from the name of the young people aged 8 to 14 enrolled in the fascist youth organization Opera Nazionale Balilla: the “balillas”. The term "balilla" was inspired by an episode of a Genoese revolt against the Austrian occupation, when the young Giovan Battista Perasso, known as "balilla", incited the crowd to revolt in 1746. Designed by architect Aurelio Cetica, the building was a large triangular structure with rounded corners, with two arms, one for men's organizations and one for women, a large courtyard with sports fields, gyms and swimming pool. A rationalist and functional architecture, very geometric without particular decorative and monumental elements. The façade facing Piazza Beccaria was ruined by marble bands, removed immediately at the end of the war. It followed the concept of that time: aesthetics subordinated to the functional purpose. Light colors, abundant use of marble in the frames and surfaces. The perimeter of the building from above resembled a D, the first letter of DUX (Latin for leader, word used to call Mussolini, the leader of Fascism) and it seems that the original project, later modified, included the entire word.
As always, very different opinions were expressed: it was defined beautiful, exciting, an example of functional architecture, but also modest, squalid, an example of propaganda monumentalism. In praise was even cited the influence of Erich Mendelsohn, one of the most important German architects, author of the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, a work-symbol of expressionism.
After the war the building was used as a swimming pool, cinema and variety theater until 1975, when it was demolished to make way for the State Archives, built by the architect Italo Gamberini, whose most cited work remains the Center for contemporary art Luigi Pecci in Prato. The decision was taken by the new council of the Municipality of Florence elected in 1975, led by the communist Elio Gabbuggiani, who had neither doubts, nor hesitations.

The new steel and concrete building of the Archivio di Stato was clad in artificial stone made of concrete slabs mixed with brown coloring materials, of metal window frames and other dark iron structures. Certainly very efficient, modern and finally safe from floods and fires, however a building  of heavy apppearance, resembling a military installation, due to the masses of raw concrete, iron structures and dark colors.
The opinion of Antonio Paolucci, an important art historian and long-time Superintendent of Fine Arts of the Province of Florence - much loved in the city - weighed heavily on the negative judgment of the population. In an article of February 2nd, 2001 in the newspaper La Repubblica, Paolucci regrets the old palace “destroyed only for political reasons, of pure ideological hatred: because it was fascist and because it was also beautiful. Certainly more beautiful than the sad building quickly built up immediately afterwards to house the State Archives destined to leave the Uffizi ".
Of course it is difficult to judge whether it is right to keep a building standing just because it bears witness to a certain era and has a strong stylistic identity. Modern orientations, however, are set to preserve these structures, even if they have a taste and meaning far from the contemporary one.
If the city council had to make the decision today, surely the Casa del Balilla would not be demolished and the State Archives would be built elsewhere.