Grand escalier, Palais Garnier, Paris.

Cutaway model of the Palais Garnier. Click for much larger version, as usual. Much larger; don’t miss it.

Floating sphere in the Genoa harbour, architect Renzo Piano. Photo credit.

Fascist Headquarters, Rome, 1934

History has a tendency to move in and out of believability: is this façade not beyond parody? Was this possible? It was more than possible, it was imperative; it was accompanied by the percussion of not-merely-metaphorical truncheons. Next time you are tempted to believe that matters will take care of themselves, that the powerful are as trustworthy as the powerless, that the contingency of human affairs does not extend to the unthinkable, remember: Si. This, this, was how people decided they would live.