Italian Colonial Architecture

Italian colonial architecture covers the variety of architectural styles used by the colonial authorities and colonists of the Italian Empire, beginning with the founding of Italian Eritrea in 1885. Before the rise of the National Fascist Party, the styles built in Italy's colonies were heterogeneous and largely reflected the contemporary architectural scene in Italy itself, though with an orientalist inflection. Fascist administration later pushed for a distinct colonial style combining Italian design with appropriated local vernacular forms, and by the early 1930s various incarnations of Rationalism had become the dominant style across Italy's African and European colonies until they were lost with Italy's defeat in the Second World War.