Italian Construction in the First Half of the Twentieth Century between Materials Restrictions and Innovative Technology

The first decades of the twentieth century for Italy represent a period in which strong innovative instances, either stylistic or technical, cohabit with ways of construction that are still decidedly related to handicraft, being favoured by the good availability of labour and traditional construction materials. Not considering the relatively few Vanguard experiences of the Modern Movement, in the current building production of this period tradition and innovation find a particular balance that is expressed in the several forms that characterize the process of modernization of the Italian architecture in its typological, technological and stylistic aspects. This paper presents a research on Italian construction in the first half of the twentieth century, which was possible to accomplish only by accessing some well documented projects and realizations of the professional activity of some meaningful personages of the period, in particular the archives of the engineer Ildebrando Tabarroni from Bologna (1881-1958), which have supplied a great deal of the material.