Government Palace

The Government Palace of Taranto, built on a project by Armando Brasini, is one of the major architects of the “regime”. This majestic Palace was built to house the headquarters of the Prefecture, the Police Headquarters and the county Offices of the Province.

The execution of the work, handled by two companies from Campania, took about four years of time and costed twenty-one millions of lire, quite a lot considering the standards of that time

The architecture, as well as the symbolic value of the building, seemed to have been extremely appreciated by Benito Mussolini, who since then has taken part in the celebrations organized for its inauguration in 1934.

The façade, characterized by the massive use of bricks, reminds us of the architectural idea of ​​the fortified castrum of the Roman age made even more spectacular by the presence of bronze signs and symbolic references.

The building occupies an area of ​​over 4500 square meters, it is fifty-two meters high (170 ft.) but reaches, in total, a height of eighty-five meters (279 ft.) thanks to the two bronze antennas placed at its summit.

The two large bells of the towers were meant to ring in particular circumstances. On the sides of the main door, during the Fascist era, two bronze fascist beams of  about 20 meters  of hight (66 ft.) were erected and, subsequently, demolished.