Building of the Chamber of Commerce

It was built in the mid-1930s in a city that wanted to magnify its new status as a Province through the construction of premises for the new offices which were consequently set up.

The newly founded Provincial Council for Corporate Economy (later the Chamber of Commerce) was initially located in the Pontecorvi building that overlooked Piazza Tacito and has now been replaced by a building with offices and a bank.

The project by the engineer Angelo Guazzaroni, sought to apply the concept of modernism, very much in vogue at the time and which is improperly referred to as fascist architecture. He therefore wanted a building that expressed modernism but the result did not live up to expectations.

An area close to Piazza Tacito was chosen for the building, a place where the medieval city walls had once stood. A section of those walls, which crossed Via Cesare Battisti and Piazza Tacito, had already been demolished in accordance with the choice of the Lattes-Staderini plan, imprinted with modernity and the concept of efficiency, which did not therefore respect pre-existing historical evidence. In order to make room for the new building, demolition work continued as far as the area behind the church of St Francis.

There are two façades: one, not the main one, looks onto Via Cesare Battisti, the other faces Piazza Tacito. The main façade incorporates two eagles, symbols of the Fascist period in which it was built and the coats of arms of the four major centres of the province: Terni , Narni, Orvieto and Amelia and has a corner tower with a large clock that was supposed to be seen from Piazza Tacito as its characteristic feature.

The Municipality of Terni intervened when the project was approved because of the tower, the clock and the decentralised entrance portal. The mayor wrote a letter contesting these “anomalies” and suggested some modifications. He asked that at least some of the architectural motifs which harmonised with the rest of the façade be used for the portal; that the height of the windows be levelled between the two façades, that the tower be raised. Suggestions that were almost all taken into consideration and respected.

The sound of the siren announcing midday for the factories is characteristic.