From Fascism to Fashion

We learned about Fendi's purchase of the building in February of this year, when the company offered EUR SpA €50 million for it. At the time EUR SpA had a shortage of cash and a conference center designed by Massimiliano Fuksas sitting uninished. The money from the sale would have gone toward finishing the Fuksas building.

Yet now the Guardian reports that Fendi and its 450 employees have moved in, and its chief executive, Pietro Beccari, sees its Fascist past as a non-issue: "What should I say? For me it is a non-issue. For the Romans it is a non-issue. For Italians it is a non-issue. This building is beyond a discussion of politics. It is aesthetics. It is a masterpiece of architecture. To rebuild it today would cost more than €500m."

Fendi, which is also paying to restore the Trevi Fountain, has opened their new headquarters with an exhibition on the ground floor devoted to the building's history, which "largely glosses over the fact that it represents one of Italy’s darkest periods in modern history," per the Guardian article.

Regardless if Romans and those outside the city view the building optimistically, like Beccari, or tainted by its past, at least the building is finally being put to use, after sitting vacant for most of its 75-year existence.