An excellent example of Italian colonial architecture is Benghazi under the Italians (named "Bengasi Italiana" by the Italians), which flourished as a prominent port-city in Italian Cyrenaica, which the Italians first colonised following the Italo-Ottoman war of 1911. At the time of occupation, in 1911, Benghazi had fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, having largely been depopulated during the plague of 1874) and had very little infrastructure; unpaved roads and a lack of telegraph and sewage services. In the decades that immediately followed, the Italian restructured the city, creating an urban metropolis around the original Arabic center, and running alongside the harbour.

At the start of the 1930’s, Beghazi had been remodelled as a Mediterranean city in the image of many souther Italian towns, and had all expected infrastructure, together with a new port and railway station, connecting Benghazi and Barce, and Benghazi and Suluq. A new road running along the coastline connecting Benghazi to Tunisia, was also constructed by the early 30s to enable ease of road transportation.

During the 20s and 30s, numerous celebrated Italian architects, such as Di Fausto, Di Segni, Limongelli and Alpago Novello, Cabiati and Ferrazza (of the famed Milan studio of architecture) were commissioned to contribute to the urban planning of Benghazi, and the design of many iconic buildings, primarily Italianate and modernist in style, which can still be found in modern day Benghazi.

Benghazi Cathedral in Fascist Martyr Square was designed by Guido Ottavo and Cabiati Ferrazza and is the largest, most iconic building of Bengasi Italiana and opened to the public in 1934. It is distinguished by its two gilded domes and doric columns, and remains a unique example of neoclassical architecture in Benghazi.

The Moorish inspired Palazzo del Governatore, was also designed by Ottavio Cabiati, and later became Al Manar Palace, the Benghazi dwelling of the Senussi royal family, eventually acquired by the University of Libya. Palazzo del Governatore, overlooked Kings Square or "Piazza del Re".

Kings Square which contained a landscaped public garden or ‘Giardino Pubblico della Piazza del Re’ which the public could stroll through to the tree lined "Corso Italia" to the newly inaugurated Benghazi train station.

Palazzo Littorio designed by Carlo Rossini in 1923 and housed the Parliament of Cyrenaica. Notorious for being the building where Omar Mukhtar was tried and sentenced to hang, it was damaged by shelling in WWII and eventually demolished.

Lastly, the Benghazi Municipal Hall, designed by famed architect Ivo Lebboroni and constructed in 1924, was considered one of the finest colonial edifices of its time, designed in a neo-moorish style in fashion in the Italy of the time, and no expense was spared in decorating the interior with frescoes by Guido Cadorin and furniture designed by famed art deco furniture designer Vittorio Ducrot.

In the late 1930s, Italian colonial architecture transitioned to a form of architecture which reflected the emergence of the Italian facist regime. A prime example of the buildings of this is the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli¹.