Ex Casa del Fascio — Rubano (Quirino De Giorgio, 1937–1939)
Rubano (1937–1939): one of the rural party houses Quirino De Giorgio built across the Padua countryside, a brick block that still carries its stone slogan and four fasces consoles.
At a glance
On a small paved square in Rubano, west of Padua, stands a compact two-storey block in bare brick. It was built at the end of the 1930s as the local Casa del Fascio, the house of the Fascist party, to a design by Quirino De Giorgio. The party is long gone; the building has served the town council for decades. What has not been removed is the evidence of what it was: four stone consoles carved as fasces, and a slab that still reads Credere, Obbedire, Combattere.
Key facts
- Architect: Quirino De Giorgio (1907–1998)
- Built: late 1930s, within his 1937–1939 series of rural party houses
- Material: load-bearing brick, exposed inside and out
- Original use: Casa del Fascio (local Fascist party house)
- Today: municipal building; renovated and extended in the 1990s
- Address: Via Enrico Medi 11, Bettanella di Rubano (Padua)
History
Quirino De Giorgio was young, local, and prolific. Trained in the orbit of Futurism and drawn to the imported language of Rationalism, he became the busiest interpreter of Fascist building in the province of Padua once the party started funding houses for its rallies and youth groups. Between 1937 and 1939 he produced a run of rural Case del Fascio across the countryside around Padua — at Vigonza, Sant’Urbano, Noventa Padovana, Pontelongo, Piazzola sul Brenta and here at Rubano.
These were small commissions with a fixed programme: a hall for meetings, offices for the local branch, a balcony or forecourt for speeches. De Giorgio met the brief with an economy of means that reads today as almost austere. After 1945 the network of party houses lost its purpose overnight. Rubano’s, like many, was absorbed into civic use, renovated and enlarged in the 1990s, and it now houses council services with access limited to staff.
What you see
The block is a plain brick prism, its two long facades organised by a shallow rhythm of brick pilasters that rise into the wall without base or capital — a De Giorgio signature, the structure folded into an elementary geometry rather than dressed with ornament. A slim entrance canopy on green steel shelters the door; a single small bell hangs high on the flank.
The charged detail sits at the top of the facade. Four terracotta consoles are carved as fasci littori, the bundled rods that gave Fascism its name and emblem. Below them a weathered stone slab carries the party’s three-word command in incised Roman capitals: Credere, Obbedire, Combattere — Believe, Obey, Fight. The stone is worn but fully legible.
Reading the building
Cultural Heritage Online documents this building as a historical source. The terracotta fasces and the incised slogan are recorded here as part of its fabric — a rural party house of the late 1930s, built with real skill and preserved intact. We present it as a document of its years, describing what stands rather than judging the period.
Getting there
Rubano sits about eight kilometres west of Padua, along the old road to Vicenza. It is a short drive or bus ride from Padua’s centre; the nearest railway hub is Padova. The building faces a public square and can be seen from the street at any time, though the interior is a council office and is not open to visitors.
Sources
- Comune di Rubano — Ex Casa del Fascio, official building record (address, dating, current use).
- Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali (ICCD), entry Casa del Fascio, Rubano, no. 0500349932.
- Biographical and architectural literature on Quirino De Giorgio and the rural Case del Fascio of the Padua province (1937–1939).
Gallery
More views — photographs by Stefano Vigolo, 2026.
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