Down with Skyscrapers

The citizens of Florence are justly proud of their city's handsome sky line with its craggy palaces, soaring domes and towers. In 1944, retreating Germans blew up five of Florence's famous bridges and blasted the approaches to the most famous, the Ponte Vecchio. Last week Florentines were up in arms against a new threat to their city's ancient beauty: modern architecture.

Contractors and speculators were filling the blocks cleared by German mines with reinforced concrete buildings which, to sensitive Florentines, resembled "overgrown bird cages" and "human beehives." Thousands of townspeople, called up by a recently organized League of Action for the Esthetic Defense of Florence, marched through the city's narrow streets, waved banners denouncing the modern "skyscrapers." They stopped to boo at particularly offensive buildings, warned Mayor Giorgio la Pira that "to spoil the beauty of Florence is to cover ourselves with dishonor." Cried one demonstrator: "Enough of this chatter! Against reinforced concrete we shall employ dynamite!"

Replied Mayor la Pira: "Florence"is a pearl of matchless beauty. Its defense is one of the fundamentals of this administration." At week's end, the city council had ordered work stopped on a nine-story building, was considering demolition of its upper stories to bring it into harmony with the Florence sky line.

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