The most surprising and unexpected thing I saw on my trip to Florence wasn’t the Michelangelos, Botticellis and Da Vincis (photos at the end) but the train station, built in 1934 in a streamlined modern style with similarities to Frank Lloyd Wright and a bit of Flash Gordon futurism. It’s breathtaking, not least because it’s almost entirely intact and free of disfiguring renovations. There’s an uncanny feel of traveling backwards in time.
I’m pretty sure there are no major intact buildings in this style remaining in the US – if there ever were any to begin with, regardless of size -, nor in Germany. There could be a few in the Netherlands or Russia or eastern Europe. It’s too early-space-age to be glamorous Art Deco (such as Rockefeller Center, or hotels in Miami) or minimalist Bauhaus (which is much more austere and spartan; nothing here is painted white). But I believe Italy has quite a few, as they were among the earliest and most active adopters of modern architecture, a fact which has never really gotten much recognition. I wonder if it’s because the most prominent German Bauhaus architects fled to the US in the 1930s to escape the Nazis, who despised them and their modern architecture, and had long, flourishing, and widely influential careers in America; whereas in Italy the futurists stayed put. This could be why they made few significant inroads into the mainstream of the Euro-American architecture world in the postwar era.
The original signage and many bronze fixtures are still there, which is extraordinarily uncommon even in the best-preserved buildings. Everything is marble, travertine, bronze and wood. Dramatic glass roofs seem to have no support.
