Marino Lopopolo, Architect and Brave Pioneer

The book. Presentation tomorrow, March 25, at 4:30 p.m. Metropolitan City Council Chamber. A figure deeply rooted in the cultural climate of Bari’s 1930s Futurism, driven by the search for and definition of a new idea of architecture and the city

24 March 2026

In the classic postcard image of the city of Bari, the exterior views of the old town’s seafaring district stand out, clinging to the Basilica of San Nicola and protected by the Norman-Swabian Castle; the checkerboard layout of the Murat district from the nineteenth century, followed by the reflections in the water opposite of the orderly street lamps of the Lungomare Nazario Sauro, which anticipate the backdrop of public buildings and palaces from the 1930s.   

This last part of the city’s history represents a significant urban and cultural evolution for Bari. Modernism, and even more so Marinetti’s Futurism, currents of thought that stimulated Fascism, led the city to interpret a new role: modern, dynamic, enterprising, politically oriented toward the opposite shore of the Adriatic. Architecture becomes a tool for a new reading of symbols and meanings.

In the construction of Bari’s modern image, the contribution and experience of Marino Lopopolo are included as an emblematic case for understanding the dynamics of modernization of Bari’s urban fabric within the framework of Fascist “Greater Bari”. 

Marino Lopopolo (Bisceglie, 1905 – Bari, 1980), who earned a degree in architecture in 1932 from the Royal University of Naples, followed, shared, and expressed many features of Futurist thought through his works. A supporter of the establishment of the register of architects of Apulia (1952), he remained proactive even after the war until the mid-1970s. His archive was donated to the Order of Architects of the Province of Bari.

Today, a substantial book, “Marino Lopopolo, Architect and Courageous Pioneer” by Antonio Labalestra, Quasar editions (368 pages, 22.00 Euro), through careful work on archival sources, reconstructs the human and professional profile of the Bari architect, restoring its complexity and significance within the broader context of twentieth-century Italian architectural culture.

The volume highlights Lopopolo’s contribution to the definition of a new idea of architecture and the city, tracing his activity among public buildings, working-class districts, ministerial palaces, planned cities, and commercial spaces among the most representative of Bari at the time.

What emerges is a figure deeply rooted in the cultural climate of Futurism and Rationalism, capable of interpreting architecture as an instrument of social transformation and as an expression of a modern, rigorous, and at the same time ambitious vision. The story of Marino Lopopolo thus also becomes a key to rereading the debate, opened especially from the 1930s onward, on the relationship between architects, institutions, ideology, and political power.

The book will be presented tomorrow, Wednesday, 25 March, at 4:30 p.m., in the Council Chamber of the Metropolitan City of Bari, Lungomare Nazario Sauro.

Discussing it with the author will be Gian Paolo Consoli, Professor of History of Architecture at the Politecnico di Bari, Carlo Moccia, Professor of Architectural Design at the Politecnico di Bari, and Ferdinando Pappalardo, Vice President of the National Association of Italian Partisans and former Professor of Theory and History of Literary Genres at the University of Bari.

The meeting will open with greetings from Umberto Fratino, Rector of the Polytechnic University of Bari, Franco Defilippis, Director of the ArCoD Department – Architecture, Construction and Design, and Cosimo Damiano Mastronardi, President of the Order of Architects, Planners, Landscape Architects and Conservators of the Province of Bari.

Speakers will include: Vito Leccese, Mayor of Bari, Giovanna Iacovone, Deputy Mayor of Bari, Adriano Buzzanca, Director of the State Archives of Bari, and Francesca Romana Paolillo, Director of the Superintendency for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape.

The author. Antonio Labalestra is Associate Professor of History of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Bari. He has been a visiting professor at several foreign universities. He founded and directs a public research laboratory dedicated to training and the study of archival sources applied to the history of architecture and design disciplines. His research interests mainly concern architecture between the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular attention to Southern Italy and to some central figures in twentieth-century Italian architecture, including Ernesto Basile, Armando Brasini, Marcello Piacentini, Gio Ponti and Aldo Rossi. Alongside numerous essays published in volumes and international journals, he has published, for Quasar, The palace of the Government of Taranto. Politics, projects and the role of Armando Brasini (2018).

The article Marino Lopopolo, Architect and Brave Pioneer comes from Poliba Chronicle.