The Hospital Church of the Holy Spirit is one of Merano’s most important spiritual centers and art monuments. So it was deliberately a provocation towards the German-speaking religious population when the city’s fascist Italian-speaking government built its Casa del Fascio right next door, in order to obstruct the view of the historical church as you approach the old town. Even worse, the old hospital had to be demolished to make way for the new construction. Despite this architectural history, which is rather inglorious for the Italians, the building ranks among the masterpieces of Italian rationalism, architecturally speaking. The widely visible open tower, the horizontally layered facades, the bands of brick and loosened floor plan make this building one of the most interesting construction works of its time.
Both being symbols of rulership, the Casa del Fascio designed in the classical style of the Italian razionalismo forms the secular counterpart of the nearby Gothic Church of the Holy Spirit. Travelers entering the city will find that the building obscures the church from view. The purpose of this spatial arrangement was to celebrate the perceived dominance of Mussolini’s Fascism over Tyrolean Christianity.
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