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he construction of the building serving as the seat of Government of the Dominican Republic is
closely tied to an Italian engineer whose life was dedicated foremost to the conceptual, ideological,
and theoretical transformation of Western architecture. In 1927, Guido D’Alessandro Lombardi
arrived in the Dominican Republic at the age of 32, full of hope and expectations. In 1925, he had
received a degree in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from Polytechnic University of Turin.
1
His career
choice was likely influenced by the industrial setting of the prosperous city where he had received his training.
During the same year as his graduation, the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts
was held. This transformational exhibition presented the technological and artistic advances of the period in
which the term “Art Deco” was coined to describe the stylistic innovation that would notably influence archi-
tectural style.
D’Alessandro Lombardi had been invited to travel to the Dominican Republic by the entrepreneur Ama-
deo Barletta, then Consul General of Italy in Santo Domingo. After having graduated and earned his degree,
Guido D’Alessandro Lombardi considered emigrating to New York in 1926. It was then that he received the
invitation from Barletta, who said to him, “Guido, in the United States you’d be a mere grain of sand on an
immense beach. But in Santo Domingo, you’ll be the very beach itself.”
2
With the outbreak of WorldWar One, D’Alessandro Lombardi was required to join the military; he joined
in 1915 and was sent to the Austrian front in 1916. He was wounded in combat the following year, 1917, and
confined at the Military Hospital of Rome. It was there while still recovering that he was reassigned to the Mil-
itary Academy of Modena. Upon returning to the war front, he was wounded again and ultimately discharged
from service in 1919.
In the year that D’Alessandro Lombardi arrived in the Dominican Republic, the international architecture
industry was heralding the advance of a new type of modernity. Prizes were being awarded in the internation-
al competition for design and construction of the site of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. This wide-
ly known and celebrated competition engendered debates about new forms and spatial concepts in Western
architecture. In Santo Domingo, D’Alessandro Lombardi entered—and won—the competition held for the
construction of the port of Montecristi. The completion of the project occurred at the same time as the ouster
of President Horacio Vásquez. Consequently, D’Alessandro Lombardi returned to Italy where his parents Lui-
gi D’Alessandro and Emilia Lombardi awaited him in the commune of Bovino, the province of Foggia, where
he had been born on December 16, 1895.
Meanwhile, Europe continued to pursue an agenda of change. In 1928, under the patronage of a group of
architects concerned with new architectural guidelines and the devastation caused by World War One, the
CHAPTER 25
The Italian Engineer
Guido D’Alessandro Lombardi
and the Construction
of the Dominican National Palace
By Emilio José Brea García
Founding member of the Order of Architects of the Dominican Republic
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