Cagliari, Palace of Justice

The building occupies the entire long front of a vast sloping space that forms Piazza Repubblica, once on the edge of the town towards Mount Urpinu.
The size of the building clearly reflects the models of works by Marcello Piacentini such as the Rectorate of the University of Rome (1932) or the courthouse in Milan (1932-40), according to the monumental solutions typical of the Fascist Twenty Years. The result is due to several designers and executors, including the engineer Domenico Dettori, the architects Gino Benigni and Augusto Valente and the civil engineering technicians, more or less involved in the 1929 competition for the building planned in Viale Trieste and then built in an area then peripheral to the city.
The building has a sober and undecorated façade with an exceptional width that dominates the space in front, arranged decades after the inauguration of the partially completed building, which dates back to 1938. The impressive appearance is underlined by the use of materials such as Serrenti stone, vulcanite and travertine used in the construction, marked vertically by gigantic columns that embrace the three levels of openings. In the center, a very high pronaos supported by pillars and columns, without a base and a capital, is completed by a large inscription bearing the Latin word IVSTITIA. Compared to the original design, the eardrums were not made in the two lateral front bodies, nor that of the nuisance in the central part.
The events of the Second World War caused slowdowns in work, which ended only in the penultimate decade of the twentieth century with the construction of the back part on Via Amat, which gave more space to the needs of the court, but with a modern-style body essentially glazed.

Bibliography
M. Pintus, “Architectures”, in Cagliari Historical Districts. Villanova, Cinisello Balsamo, A. Pizzi, 1991, p. 144;
G. Loddo, Cagliari. Architecture from 1900 to 1945, Cagliari, Coedisar, 1999, p. 100;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 64;
F. Masala, Paper architectures. Projects for Cagliari 1801-1945, Cagliari, AM&D, 2002, pp. 194-196.