The roles of the architects and the italian building conpanies in the banks relationship in the overseas countries

The documentary heritage preserved in the archives of Italian banks identify many research on the realizations of the buildings in the overseas countries. The study of these building projects allows us to identify the figures of Italian architects who worked in colonial countries and, in the same time, highlights the strong presence of Italian building companies. In many cases these companies were actually running the building sites, and were responsible for important changes to the projects, having to resolve on-the-spot problems during the construction of the building. There are some important architects who work al lot with the banks, and, in the same time, there are “minor” figures, many times local professional people who work inside the building companies and make the revision of the projects and attend to works directions. By reading these documents the entire building process from the original project to the various transformations required all the types of needs, come be followed: variant carried out by building companies (cornerstone of the entire procedure), metric calculations, cost analyses, close correspondences between the building companies and the central bank regarding various matters, drawings of various buildings details (including safes, reinforced doors, details of internal and external finishings) with enclosed quotations and invoices for supplies for those buildings. In most files there are building project plans and successive variations. Finally, many photographs document the various building stages, the inauguration end completion of the buildings.