After the Unification of Italy

Follow, Palazzina Liberty. Photo by Davide Cassanello, 2016; from Catalogo BBCC RAS

Iron architecture appeared in Cagliari between 1882 and 1886, when the covered market in Largo Carlo Felice, which no longer exists today, was built to a design by Enrico Melis.
In the Sardinian capital, the development of modern urban planning could only take place starting in 1861, when the city was removed from the list of strongholds and it was therefore possible to proceed with the demolition of the bastions, in particular those facing the historic Marina district, therefore because of the changed functional needs compared to the port area.
In 1880, the waterfront of Via Roma was traced, at the eastern end of which the new Civic Palace was built, following the competition that selected the project signed by Crescentino Caselli, but was actually due to the architect Annibale Rigotti.
Both the Civic Palace, begun in 1899, and the Umberto I Terrace, completed in 1902 as a monumental arrangement overlooking the Saint-Remy bastion and the historic Castello district on the underlying slope that leads to the port through the Marina, explain the two main historicist languages of the urban transformation of Cagliari, the second along the neoclassical coordinates, the first in the program of a neo-Gothic revival with abundant use of liberty decorations. This last taste trend will prevail in city construction, especially in the modernist or now deco characterization of the villas along Viale Merello or the series of buildings that line the front of Via Roma.

Update

3/7/2025 - 12:51