Turin day 3

Lots of walking around Turin today, assisted by the modern underground, in search of stile Liberty buildings. Things to remember:

• Litho-cement was used for the sculptures and mouldings. It’s very hard-wearing, cheap and only needs moulds rather than stone-masons. That explains the masses of cherubs everywhere.
• Windows and balconies are very decorative.
• Stile Liberty keeps many traditional elements of Italian architecture: palazzo, overhanging eaves . . . those cherubs.
• Alessandro Mazzucotelli was the master of wrought iron in Piedmont and Lombardy. I had, unwittingly, seen some of his balconies in Milan. His early work is naturalistic, his later work more ribbon-like.
• The Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna was held in the Parco del Valentino in Turin in 1902. Frances MacDonald and Herbert MacNair were amongst those exhibiting their work.
• Milan and Turin industrialists had Liberty style villas around the northern lakes as well as townhouses.
• Pietro Fenoglio is the big Turin architect of the time.
• Giuseppe Sommaruga in Milan.
• Most of the stile Liberty buildings are private villas or apartment blocks built for rent. Some of the latter take up an entire block.
• They used modern construction techniques like cast iron and reinforced concrete using the Hennebique system.

So, here are some photos from the Nizza and Vinzaglio districts:

Former Palazzina Menzio, 1900, Alfredo Premoli

First FIAT factory, Alfredo Premoli, 1906

Edificio di civile abitazione, Giuseppe Besozzi, 1904

Parco del Valentino

Between the two, we visited the old Fiat factory (1916-23 by Matté Trucco) at Lingotto. It’s an enormous, light-filled building around a courtyard, with car ramps at both ends. It’s been converted by Renzo Piano into a vast consumption and leisure complex, with the small-but-perfectly-formed Agnelli art gallery at the top. (Modigliani, Picasso, Caneletto, Bellotto’s views of Dresden, plus Balla’s 1913 Velocità Astratta – very appropriate for Fiat – and Severini’s 1915 Lanciers italiens au galop). The view from the rooftop racetrack was spectacular – as was the steep banking on the curves.

Administration building

By evening, the 28-Days-Later feel of Turin had been replaced by the Saturday evening passeggiata. Coronavirus or no coronavirus, some traditions just have to be maintained.