Walking is definitely the best way to feel the
pulse of Turin: stroll around the city parks, drop into its
historic cafès, take in the multiethnic quarters, enjoy fashion and
shopping, but don’t forget that Turin is magical too. So put on your walking
shoes and let your curiosity lead the way.
Architecture
Turin has a Baroque face and an Art Nouveau face, it has its
Royal Residences, its bridges and 18km of arcades
lining the city center, but there are innovative installations too, set on creating a
brand new look.
A tour of 20th-centuryand
contemporary Turin combines a history lesson with an introduction to
some avant-garde infrastructures and works of art.
During the 1800s, Turin crossed the River Po and extended
up the hillside: this was when the
Gran Madre di Dio
church was built.
The impressive Piazza Vittorio Veneto opened on the banks
of the Po, opposite the neoclassical cathedral and connected by the Vittorio
Emanuele I bridge, which offers a magnificent view of Monte del Cappuccini.
The church is a mausoleum-ossuary commemorating the First World War.
Turin’s iconic
Mole Antonelliana was built in 1899, designed by the visionary genius
Alessandro Antonelli, and at 167.5 meters, it was Europe’s tallest building
for many years.
Mole Antonelliana
Today it is the home of the
Museo
Nazionale del Cinema,
that has been given an eye-catching futuristic design by the Swiss architect
Francois Confino. The
panoramic
lift accesses the spire all year round.
As the 19th century slid into the 20th, Art Nouveau
prevailed in Turin: an elegant style with refined details that was expressed
here in a number of middle-class houses across the city: on Corso Francia,
on the hillside and in the area around the Valentino Park.
In the 1920s and 1930s, two new architectural symbols were
erected in Turin: Lingotto, the most important European automotive
production plant, designed by Giacomo Mattè Trucco and now transformed into a
polyvalent and trade fair center,,
thanks to Renzo Piano’s project; central Via Roma, whose arcades and
galleries were designed by Marcello Piacentini.
Other important buildings date back to the 1950s, like the
Galleria d’Arte Moderna,
Palazzo del Lavoro and Palazzo a Vela – now renamed
Palavela – and the refurbished
Teatro Regio,
created by Carlo Mollino, master of modern Torinese architecture.
The city’s architectural evolution began in the 1970s,
laying the foundations for the transformation in progress: that of new,
state-of-the-art infrastructures built for the Olympic appointment, like
Palasport by Arata Isozaki and Pier Paolo Maggiora, the Oval by Hok
Sport and Studio Zoppini, Palavela reinterpreted by Gae Aulenti and Arnaldo
De Bernardi.
These and other buildings, created by conversions of
historic or disused industrial structures are just a few examples of how the
city is being transformed by the great names of architecture.
Turin - Torino grand tour
Gran Madre di Dio Church
Mole Antonelliana
Galleria d'Arte moderna