The Catholic War Machine Part 2 Project 2019 Liam Gallagher Nottingham Trent University | UK The Catholic War Machine is an architectural speculation set in 1950s Genoa. The War Machine’s function is building armaments; the Church’s facilitation of international wars backed by the USA. This fictional project is based on evidence that the Church had interests in forming a totalitarian separatist state. The documented controversial ideologies and actions of Pope Pius XI and Pius XII, accompanied by contextual events including the Marshall Plan, provide an alternative version of history where Italy colludes with the USA’s military ambitions. The War Machine is an arms production line, with its factories built upon the existing roofs of Genoa’s cathedral and churches. A continuous viaduct spans from the mountains surrounding the city into the Ligurian Sea. The faux-traditional architectural style of glazed facades and stone cladding of the viaduct creates an ambiguous juxtaposition of transparency and obscurity, which conceals the factories’ presence from the city below. Religious decline, and the development of new warfare methods, results in the failure of the War Machine by 2050. The decline and fall of the totalitarian Catholic Church is marked by an architectural bombardment of aesthetic and excessively ornamented religious stimuli. The religious iconography remains a significant architectural relic of the regime. Tutor(s)