Elements and figures of urban space design in the Italian post-war reconstruction plans. An illustrated essay

This article provides an insight into a little-known page of Italian urban planning – the reconstruction plans of World War II. The initial sections discuss the features and technical contents of this planning instrument established by decree in March 1945, different from the general urban plan – piano regolatore generale – introduced by the Italian urban planning law no. 1150/1942. The fifth section offers a review of a sample of cases taken from the largest available collection of reconstruction plans – the open access digital archive RAPu (Urban Planning Archives Network). The ten plates and forty figures illustrating the article support the interpretative key proposed in the last section, which in the goal of vital centers of life pursued by the reconstruction plans identifies a bridge between the revaluation of the relational richness of the historic city and the search for quality of living space of the Modern.