Buildings for the Faculty of Business and Economics

Modern buildings, erected in an immensely historic fabric, communicate with Via Zamboni through the osmotic backdrop of the portico that opens up on the square. At one time this space was not much used due to a well-known superstition: if a scholar crossed it diagonally, the coveted degree would never be attained. However, today it is a space throbbing with student life whose history goes back to the 1930s. In those days, the area was - like many places in Bologna at the time - marked by poor and run-down housing. In 1936, the Urban Renewal Plan included the erection of a building for the university there, and initially Arts was the choice. When, however, in 1943 a bomb destroyed the Business Studies building that had been erected a dozen years before near Porta Galliera, a change of use became inevitable: the area was set aside for Business and Economics. Following the war, on 30 March 1950, the call for proposals for the design of the building was issued. It required that the architecture fit in with the features of the existing built-up area in terms of materials and colours. Following two rounds of short-listing, the commission was awarded to Enea Trenti and Luigi Vignali, who had already planned a similar building in that spot with his editorial group, in the Piano Regolatore Clandestino, literally the Clandestine Zoning Plan, drawn up during the war. Work began in 1951 and in 1955 the rector Felice Battaglia inaugurated the first lot concerning the four-sided portico and north-east body of the faculty. Later, in 1959-60, the building was completed in accordance with current development trends.