Three itineraries in Turin, between industrial architecture and regeneration

There are many Turins. Italy’s fourth largest municipality in terms of population, Turin is a city that has always worn different clothes throughout its history: the royal robes of the Savoy family and the patriotic ones of Italy's first capital; the dark ones of the esoteric tradition, working class overalls that counterbalanced the ties of the industrialists in the Fiat years, the sports uniforms of Juventus and Grande Torino, the underground ones of Murazzi and Subsonica.

Today, the city reveals its contemporary soul through the numerous urban renewal processes that have affected the fabric of the city from the 1980s to the present day, attracting the greatest contemporary architects – from Norman Foster to Renzo Piano, from Oscar Niemeyer to Aldo Rossi and Turin-born Carlo Mollino – to create new cultural and communal spaces. The traces of an important productive past have not disappeared, but have taken on new meanings, linked above all to community involvement.

Domus takes you to Turin, with three itineraries in Italy’s quintessential post-industrial city, to discover the regeneration and industrial archaeology projects you can visit.

The itinerary begins in Borgo San Paolo, one of Turin's main working-class neighborhoods, where the Lancia factory, railway workshops and other companies in the mechanical sector were located. One of the most important contemporary art foundations in the city, and in Italy, is located here: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. The city headquarters, built in 2002 by Claudio Silvestrin in Borgo San Paolo (complementary to the noble 18th-century villa in Guarene, also known for its striking Art Park) stands on the site of the former Fergat, a company specializing in the production of components for cars, military vehicles and agricultural use.

The same neighborhood is also home to Fondazione Merz, housed in the building of the former Officine Lancia thermal power station, an example of industrial architecture from the 1930s, a center dedicated to reflection on the production of Mario and Marisa Merz, but also a place open to dialogue with large site-specific projects by national and international artists.

Going up a little way toward the center, you come across the OGR, Officine Grandi Riparazioni: these are the oldest railway workshops in Italy, built around the mid-19th century to bring together the Porta Susa and Porta Nuova railway workshops, which had become inefficient as the city expanded. Decommissioned from its function in the early 1990s, its demolition was averted in 2013 when the CRT Foundation purchased this huge space with a surface area of about twenty thousand square meters to convert it into a center that hosts contemporary art exhibitions, events, concerts and cultural events.

Just a short walk from the OGR is another place that speaks of Turin as a city on the cutting edge, the GAM Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. The history of this institution ­­– which reopened on October 15, after just over a month of closure for a first part of renovation, overseen by the PAT studio –  began in 1863: Turin was the first Italian city to promote the acquisition of works of modern art in the collection of its Municipal Museum. Then, in 1959, architects Carlo Bassi and Goffredo Boschetti designed today's venue, recognizable by its sculptural volumes.

Not far from GAM, continuing north, is the bright Porta Susa station, Turin's second high-speed rail hub, which is a modern reinterpretation of the fascinating 19th-century iron-and-glass galleries and urban pavilions, built to a design by the Franco-Italian company AREP.

At the beginning of the same decade, the construction of the BBPR Tower complex, the only example in the city of post-rationalist architecture of the Milanese school, began on the west side of the square. In this vein of experimentation and divergence from the assumptions of rationalist and organic architecture, which Paolo Portoghesi called “neoliberty,” are the projects of Sergio Jaretti and Elio Luzi, such as the Obelisk House in Borgo Crimea, the twin villas on Via Borgofranco, and the building that right on Piazza Statuto flanks the BBPR.

Among industrial space redevelopment projects, however, Dora Park is among the most significant. On the site of the Michelin and Fiat ironworks, once as large as the city center, Peter Latz's firm, since 2004, has integrated naturalistic elements with monumentalized industrial structures, such as the pillars and roof of the ironworks.

At either end of Dora Park is the Chiesa del Santo Volto (Church of the Holy Face) built between 2004 and 2006 to a design by Swiss architect Mario Botta, the first built in the city in the 21st century, and the Environment Park, designed in 2000 by Argentine architect Emilio Ambasz, which in thirty thousand square meters and houses companies and laboratories working in the fields of environmental sustainability and technological innovation.

At this final junction there are two great witnesses to the industrial Turin: the former Officine Savigliano, on Corso Mortara, a reinforced concrete and ferro-window building of one of Piedmont's oldest metal-mechanical companies, founded in 1880; and Le Roi Music Hall, the dancing hall that Carlo Mollino designed for Attilio Lutrario in 1959, and which still attracts the most diverse audiences under the lights of its almost psychedelic ceiling.

The second itinerary picks up the thread along the banks of the Dora to downtown. The starting point is the Casa Aurora (1987) by Aldo Rossi and Gianni Braghieri, built on the area of the old Aurora farmstead, which gives its name to the neighborhood in which it is located, Borgo Aurora, considered in the late 19th century to be the largest working-class neighborhood in the city.

Continuing toward the center, you come across the Luigi Einaudi Campus designed by Norman Foster, considered among the most beautiful university buildings in the world.

Crossing the Giardini Reali you come to the Cavallerizza Reale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. The redevelopment project is still in progress. Thanks to Paratissima, the building has become a landmark as a contemporary center dedicated to artistic and cultural projects.

The third itinerary is all about a place that is representative not only of Turin's industrial character, but also of its resourcefulness, and is still today a hub in continuous transformation. We are talking about the Lingotto, designed by engineer Giacomo Matté Trucco for Fiat between 1916 and 1920, which immediately became one of Italy's leading examples of architectural modernity, which even Le Corbusier called “one of the most impressive spectacles that industry has ever offered” in his 1923 work Vers une architecture.

It is Italy's first reinforced concrete manufacturing plant, inspired by Ford's American model at Highland Park in Detroit, integrating all production stages over five floors, and ending with an elevated test track (it is one of only three buildings ever built in the world with a car circuit on the roof). The Lingotto becomes a symbol of the Turin proletariat during World War II, and shuts down in 1982 after the gradual reduction of production. Fiat considers returning the use of the decommissioned building to the community, and in 1985 Renzo Piano is commissioned to renovate the entire complex.

The most striking element of the Lingotto is probably Pista 500, transformed by Pinacoteca Agnelli into an exhibition space, where international artists have been called upon to create works and installations that engage with Piano and Matté Trucco's architecture.

Also located on the three central structures in the oval of the racetrack are the Bolla, an entirely glassed-in meeting room suspended forty meters from the roof, the heliport added in 1994, and the Scrigno (2002), a metal box that holds twenty-five masterpieces from the collection of the Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli: one of the most important institutions of contemporary art in Italy, it devotes the floors below the racetrack to unseen and site-specific exhibition projects, along with spaces for in-depth study and teaching.

Not far from the main building is the former large press factory to the south of the complex, which was transformed in 1991 to become the Lingotto Fiere trade fair-exhibition center. It is here that some of Italy's most important events are held, such as the International Book Fair, and the electronic and avant-garde music festival Club To Club.

Well integrated into the new Lingotto is also the Oval building, originally built for the 2006 Winter Olympics as a speed skating rink, designed by the British firm HOK Sport Ltd, with Studio Zoppini Associati, Buro Happold Ltd, and M.S.C. Associati SR. This 20,000-square-meter space, which is part of Lingotto Fiere, hosts the international art fair Artissima every year. The multi-functionality of the Lingotto area turns toward sustainability, and in 2020 the Green Pea shopping center is inaugurated, adjacent to the first Eataly store opened in 2007, Oscar Farinetti's new bet, designed by ACC - Cristiana Catino and Negozio Blu Architetti Associati - Carlo Grometto architects who imagined it as a natural organism, in which cutting-edge technologies and green energy solutions were used.

Also confirming the Lingotto's pivotal role is the headquarters of the Piedmont region, which was relocated to the former Fiat Avio area between 2006 and 2007. The skyscraper designed by Massimiliano Fuksas at 209 meters (including the antenna) is the tallest in the city, and the third tallest in Italy. Also located in the same area were the Turin General Markets, built in 1932 to a design by Umberto Cuzzi, an example of rationalist architecture, with seven symmetrically arranged galleries with parabolic arches of exposed concrete. Decommissioned in 2001 and restored to become part of the Olympic village during the 2006 Winter Games, they now await a new destination. The village, designed by Benedetto Camerana, includes three distinct areas covering 90,000 square meters, with residential units and service facilities, and the large red arch of the pedestrian walkway connecting the area to the Lingotto.

With still half a day to spare, we suggest a few out-of-town destinations that are worth a visit. The first suggestion involves two buildings constructed to a design by Oscar Niemeyer that are located in two towns from the Turin metropolitan area: the FATA Building in Pianezza (1977-1979), and the Burgo Paper Mill in San Mauro Torinese (1977). The former still in operation as the headquarters of the company from which it takes its name, the latter restored just over a year ago as the headquarters of Argotec, an Italian space company with operations centers in Turin and the USA. A trip to Rivoli Castle is the second suggestion: a historic Savoy residence restored in the 1970s that since 1984 has been home to a contemporary art museum with one of Italy's most important collections. 

The last stop is an example of industrial archaeology. The Officine Grandi Motori complex at the Barriera di Milano, built in 1891 by Pietro Fenoglio to be the headquarters of Officine Meccaniche Michele Ansaldi, was later expanded and in 1923, was acquired by Fiat, which established the Grandi Motori (OGM) section there. Since the closure of the plant, it has been in a very deteriorated condition for many years and at the center of a qualification project that has not yet begun.