Arising from the surge of moral outrage and turmoil characterizing the “1956 crisis” of the Italian left wing, the cultural magazine 'Città aperta', published in Rome in 1957 and 1958, started out as a courageous attempt by various Communist intellectuals – in opposition to the official line of the PCI in which all were enrolled – to identify a possible alternative to the rigid dirigisme of the party's cultural policies and unquestioning pro-Soviet stance. The magazine's chief editor was Tommaso Chiaretti, a journalist of 'l'Unità', while the editorial staff was composed of cultural figures active in various fields: painting (Renzo Vespignani, Ugo Attardi, Marcello Muccini), literary history and criticism (Luca Canali, Dario Puccini, Mario Socrate), cinema (Elio Petri, Chiaretti himself) and architecture (Piero Moroni). The magazine also featured articles by other prominent intellectuals who shared its critical position and interest in renewal: Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Vasco Pratolini and Giuseppe Bonaviri. Self-declared “Marxists” and “realists”, the editors of 'Città aperta' put forward new ideas and differentiated modes of expression that went beyond the realism sustained by the party – a realism being seen as limited and anachronistic – finding their roots and inspiration in the urban, industrial civilization of the contemporary era. In this regard, albeit in an overall vision of integrated culture, the magazine gave great importance to articles on the figurative arts and architecture, which were among the liveliest politico-cultural initiatives advanced at that time and to which the present paper is mainly dedicated: from the texts of Vespignani, Attardi and Moroni to those of other figures who were invited to contribute to the open debate – Franco Francese, Giuseppe Zigaina, Eduardo Vittoria, Nico Di Cagno and even Renato Guttuso.
However, the leaders of the PCI (starting with Mario Alicata, head of the cultural commission) showed little tolerance for the views expressed by the magazine, which were seen as “divisive”. The insistent and increasingly explicit political criticism inevitably led to censorship by the party – an initial “call to order” of the dissenting voices, causing the publication to be suspended, and ultimately the expulsion of Chiaretti from the party and the closure of the magazine altogether.