Cagliari, State Archives

Archivio di Stato di Cagliari. Foto di Ministero della Cultura

The vast building overlooks the corner between Sonnino and Gallura streets, underlining its trend with a 45° cut that forms the main façade.
Designed in 1921 as the headquarters of the State Archives, during construction, the Ministry of Public Works decided to temporarily locate the Civil Engineering, a destination for use, however, respected until 2000 in the two floors added precisely for this purpose. The structure was inaugurated in 1927 despite the fact that some parts were not yet completely finished.
The building plays an important role in urban planning because it served as a driving force for the new expansion of the city to the east, together with the buildings of the Fire Station (now demolished), the Carabinieri Legion and the adjoining Remembrance Park, all contemporary and on Via Sonnino.
It has an almost quadrangular planimetric structure with elevations characterized by an austere neo-sixteenth-century setting with Renaissance and Mannerist elements. The narrow angular façade, enclosed by sturdy rustic ashlar pillows, is decidedly the most important, presenting a marble portal with pointed stones, a broken curved tympanum and an overhanging window with a relief shelf; in axis, in the two upper levels, separated by a marcapian frame, windows open with triple light, with a tympanum, with the first tympanum, with the last shelf. A strongly projecting ledge supported by peducci to curly closes the building, which has a similar appearance in the long side elevations, where, one on each side, the curved portals flanked by half-columns and surmounted by balustraded balconies, as well as the windows made differently for each level, stand out.

History of studies
A review of studies can be found in the bibliography relating to the fact sheet in the volume of the “History of Art in Sardinia” on nineteenth-century architecture (2001).

Bibliography by
M. Pintus, “Architectures”, in Cagliari Historic Districts. Villanova, Cinisello Balsamo, A. Pizzi, 1991, pp. 142-143;
G. Loddo, Guide to Contemporary Architecture of Cagliari 1945-1995, Cagliari 1996, p. 89;
F. Masala, “The Formation of the Bourgeois City”, in A. Accardo, Cagliari, series “History of Italian Cities”, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1996, p. 249; F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 57.