Mario Palanti and Mole Littoria

Mario Palanti was an Italian architect who designed important buildings in the capital cities of both Argentina and Uruguay. During the period 1909-1919 he designed the Palacio Salvo in Montevideo, and produced a large number of drawings for monumental buildings that were never built. In the final period of his work, after he returned to live in Italy in 1930, he undertook a series of projects that never materialised.

In the shadow of Italian Fascism, Mario Palanti saw an opportunity to transform the skyline of the Italian capital by pandering to the egotistical ambitions of a dictator. Ultimately the extent of his vision was matched only by his failure.

Arriving in Italy before him, with an Argentinian Greyhound as a gift to the dictator, was his proposed design for L’Eternale, a 330metre high, 70,000sqm skyscraper of epic proportions mooted for the centre of Rome, a tower which was to “Eternalise for the centuries the work of the fascist government in the Eternal City.”

The tallest building in the world, but one not at the service of commerce but of the citizen and the state, housing Italy’s new Parliament, lecture halls, meeting rooms, a hotel, library, enormous sports facilities, lighthouse, clock, astronomical observatory, telegraph and telephone stations.

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