Rhodes

In 1923, one year after Mussolini’s seizure of power in Italy, he sent Mario Lago to take over the administration of Rhodes. With the help of geologists and cartographers he wanted to realise his vision to make the island of Rhodes a trading centre, tourism hub and a place able to represent the spirit of Italian culture and civilization. In 1926 the Regulatory Plan of the town of Rhodes was innovative even for Italy as it defined the construction of roads, water supply, drainage, lighting networks, and administrative and military buildings. Urban planning, architectural, and construction initiatives aimed at the growth and modernization of the existing urban centre, while new rural settlements expressed the ideological need for a direct morphological reconstitution of space.

During the Italian totalitarian perido, a number of monuments were constructed in the town centre as well as in the coastal and hinterland zones of the island. Rhodes was gradually presented as a real monument of fascist modernism and the imperial power of Italy. In 1934, Mussolini declared that future relations between Italians and the peoples of the East were not based on "territorial conquest" but on "natural expansion’, reason for which the Italians followed the policy of constructing buildings to influence the local inhabitants – a clear act of building consensus among the locals.