Urban Utopia and Building Experimentations: The Rural Villages of the Sicilian Latifundium

The colonization of Sicilian latifundium was an attempt of regeneration of the rural areas. It was carried out by Benito Mussolini, called Il Duce, who governed Italy by a regime with an absolute and conservative approach for 20 years since 1922. According to this plan, there were some rural villages (with a school, a church, a police station and a doctor’s surgery) and anumber of rural homes, spread in the landscape, that formed one of the mostimportant achievements of the agrarian reform in Italy. The author has been conducting scientific research on this topic for several years. He started with the archive “Ente per la Colonizzazione del Latifondo Siciliano” (now called Ente SviluppoAgricolo) to review the original designsand contracts with companies, ledgers and other administrative documents. Lately, he has been reviewing the personal archives of designers involved in the building program, where he has found original drawings, letters, sketches, etc.. Hehas also conducted some architectonic and technical surveys of the sites. We have to consider that nowadays the mentioned rural villages are a strategic resource for the development of the neighboring areas, as it may become a network for the sustainable tourism and the promotion of the local agro food specialties. On this purpose, the local authority is going to promote some plans for the requalification of these sites. The particular achievement of this article is to show a number of possibilities for the reuse of these places.