Abstract  

Since the nineteenth century, the architecture of dairy barns underwent significant sanitary and technological improvements that led to better farm hygiene, increased animal density, and safer milk production. Dairy farms were seen as laboratories for the implementation of industrial building materials, such as steel and concrete, as well as devices for the control of air and light through ventilation and electrical equipment. This debate was soon absorbed into the political and colonial propaganda of the Italian fascist regime. Since the early 1930s, the “American barns” [stalle all’americana] became a matter of national attention and a key tool for the “zootechnical battle” [battaglia zootecnica] which was intended to sustain the country’s demographic growth, both in the Italian peninsula and in the African colonies. Merging science, technology, and political propaganda, this discourse emerges from numerous printed sources, such as reports, journal articles, and rural construction handbooks. This talk will analyze how the debate over the modernization of dairy barns was politicized by the institutions and zootechnical experts of the Italian fascist regime. The overall aim is to shed light on the interconnections between cattle and the fascist-colonial built environment, and on the role of animal infrastructures in the Italian imperial project. 

Bio 

Sofia Nannini is an assistant professor of architectural history at the Politecnico di Torino. She is currently Principal Investigator of the ERC StG 2025 ANIMALFARM: An Architectural History of Intensive Animal Farming (1570–1992). Her work has been supported by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. She is author of Icelandic Farmhouses: Identity, landscape and construction (1790–1945) (Firenze University Press, 2023), The Icelandic Concrete Saga: Architecture and Construction (1847–1958) (Jovis, 2024) and Is there a known optimum gate size for the dual control of cattle and sheep? (Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2025). She is also co-curator of the segment “The Animal Is Present” in the exhibition “Convivium: Food Systems at the Limit” at the Architekturmuseum der TUM, Munich (April-October 2026). 

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