Choice Reviews Online · 1991 · 63 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesClassicsHistoryBuilding StructuresHistoriographyRoman HistoryAesthetics Of ArchitectureAncient ArchitectureAncient RomeArchitectural SpaceClassical AntiquityRoman EmpireAncient Roman HistoryImperial ArchitectureImperial TemplesRoman ArchitectureRoman Imperial ContextRoman Public MonumentsRoman Town PlanningRome Rivalry
Hitler idolized ancient Rome’s imperial grandeur and sought to emulate its monumental architecture and disciplined order in Nazi Germany’s state buildings, viewing such neoclassical forms as symbols of stability, tradition, and a pagan totalitarian hierarchy. The book investigates Hitler’s Roman-inspired architectural ambitions and Speer’s designs that aimed to rival iconic Roman monuments. Speer and other architects such as Ludwig Ruff and Casar Pinnau designed Nazi buildings modeled after Roman landmarks like the Colosseum, Baths of Caracalla, and other imperial structures. The study finds that Nazi neoclassical architecture was meant to convey more than stability and tradition, embodying a pagan totalitarian hierarchy.
Adolf Hitler admired ancient Rome as the crystallization point of a world empire, a capital with massive public monuments that reflected the supremacy of the State and the political might of the ancient world's master-race. He also admired the way Mussolini turned the monuments of imperial Rome into validatory symbols of Fascism. Hitler planned a Reich that would be a as durable as the Roman Empire. Its capital, Berlin, would surpass the architectural magnificence of ancient Rome before the advent of Christianity as its official religion. This book examines Hitler's views on Roman imperialism, town planning, and architecture, and shows how Albert Speer, though a self-confessed student of Doric architecture, planned and sometimes built structures that were intended to rival such monuments as Nero's Golden House, Hadrian's Pantheon, and the Stadium of Herodes Atticus at Athens. Other architects, such as Ludwig Ruff and Casar Pinnau, were to plan structures inspired by the Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla. The ancient Roman obsession with order, discipline, and the domination of the environment is clearly reflected in the town plans and public buildings conceived by Hitler and his architects. We see that neoclassical state architecture in Nazi Germany was intended to signify more than stability and the persistence of tradition. It was only one aspect of the Nazi attempt to re-create a pagan totalitarian state based on clearly defined forms of hierarchy that divided society into slaves and slave-owners, those with and those without human rights.