Unlike the surrounding Piemonte with its well-known wine country, Torino is obscure and unsung enough to warrant a bit of guidance and a few unsolicited suggestions.
- No doubt, this destination is among the more surprising, original, and underappreciated, shrugged off by consensus – lazy, underinformed, conformist – as the Detroit of Italy: nothing to see here. As far as the Detroits of the world go, this one happens to be effortlessly artsy, exceedingly stylish and elegant, and decidedly Epicurian. Associated with FIAT and Juventus – guess what the ‘T’ in ‘FIAT’ stands for – and seemingly little else, Torino is behind some of the most iconic Made in Italy exports utterly unrelated to the automobile or soccer. The city of the car was home to Arte Povera, arguably Italy’s and Southern Europe’s most influential important avantgarde movement of the ’60s and ’70s; today it is known as the center of country’s modern art scene and the unofficial world capital of industrial and applied design. Torino hosts Italy’s best purveyors of chocolate and is the epicenter of a spectacular region synonymous with some of the world’s finest food and most celebrated wines. An exclusive brand of Italian excellence at its best, Torino screams resourcefulness, innovation, and quality – in just about everything that tickles your taste buds or senses. This mostly undetected hidden gem is Italy’s fourth largest metropolis and should be able to handle the weight of expectations that are bound to rise over time as it gets discovered. It may even invite some purposeful reflection.
- More French or Swiss than any other city in Bel Paese, Torino is predictably wealthy, classy and clean, with a seemingly plain and restrained vibe of a place that is devoid of all contrasts. Its French association is not a surprise, the sovereign family that transferred its seat to Torino in 1563, the House of Savoy, was French; the greater Duchy of Savoy – including all of Piemonte, and from 1720 also Sardinia – remained effectively a French satellite, until France annexed the historic Savoy and Nice in 1860 in exchange for helping Garibaldi conquer and unite Italy under the rule by the House of Savoy’s Vittorio Emanuele. But get closer, and you will feel its unmistakably Italian spirit of place, a perfectly geometric built environment of portico – elegant arcaded sidewalks – and shallow roofs, a vibrant daily aperitivo hour, a dynamic attitude to life, and serious historical and artistic ties to the rest of the peninsula. Whether due to a fortuitous geography or a strong sense of historical mission of opposing the Holy Roman then Austrian Empire, the seat of the House of Savoy became the epicenter of the Risorgimento in the mid 1800’s; Italy owes to Torino its renewed independence and sovereignty, its restored national unity, and a major power status. Its relatively large metropolitan size and superficial, linear formality notwithstanding, Torino is a relaxed and stylish bon vivant – quaint, local, and walkable.
- Flat terrain and regal appearance of enlightened rigor of central planning make it a perfect antidote to Genoa: the orderly, low-rise, horizontal city of Emanuele Filiberto, Guarino Guarini, and Filipino Juvarra is infinitely more inviting and easier to navigate and enjoy than the uncompromising maze and exhausting confusion of its decidedly vertical Mediterranean neighbor. But behind the porticoed and pedimented outward restraint hides superb interior architecture executed with the gilded exuberance, theatrical character, and refined luxury worthy of the capitals of France, Holy Roman and Russian Empires, Rome, or Venice. Torino’s palatial galleries and ornate courtyards balance out its simplistic, even austere street facades, offering a little something for everyone, regardless of their aesthetic taste. This city really is worth a little bit of time – again, it takes time, not effort – to discover.
- Perfect for an overnight stay – barely enough to get a taste and make you want to come back for more. Just allow for an full afternoon before and stay the morning after – but if you plan on treating yourself to the city’s impressive collections and on learning more about its built environment and place in time, take at least two full days, it will be well worth the extra time. A few hotel suggestions – Grand Hotel Sitea on via Carlo Alberto, Turin Palace on via Paolo Sacchi, Principe di Piemonte on via Pietro Gobetti, Hotel Victoria on via Nino Costa.
- And while we are at it, and before attention deficit sets in, here are a few food & wine highlights – Del Cambio on piazza Carignano with the delightful terrace of Farmacia, its more casual sidekick, Tre Galli on via Sant’Agostino, Porto di Savona on piazza Vittorio Veneto, Magorabin on corso San Maurizio, Pepe on via Della Rocca. Sure, the historic Al Bicerin still holds its own (Eataly NYC is among the few places serving the eponymous coffee drink, but only because they feature Piemontese exports, don’t expect it in other parts of Italy) but you will be sharing it with every tourist who simply doesn’t know or doesn’t care where else to go. This pivot to places to sleep, eat and drink is not random – the city feels far from industrial and deserves to be better known, beyond the memes of FIAT and Juventus.
- But above all, Opera Ingegno e Creativita, a mouthful that as difficult to geolocate as it is to pronounce. Held back by the unfortunate timing of its launch just before the pandemic and a bit slow out of the gate, this thoroughly hidden and refreshingly casual dining establishment is slowly but surely coming back on the culinary map of this foodie capital. Ingenious and creative, it is a Michelin-star-worthy restaurant that will impress the most discerning snob and critic alike. Its vaulted, brick-clad interior – impeccable brick cladding covering every surface, floor to ceiling, including the ceiling – will impress you even before you get to your plate and slow down to enjoy, before you see the wine list, before the onslaught of flavors of amuse bouche treats and table-side delicacies served on the house in between dishes, to cleanse your palate or simply whet your appetite. This is the elaborately designed oeuvre by Stefano Sforza. Formerly of the famed Del Cambio, this modest virtuoso is equally at ease with culinary aesthetics and camera lens and is equally effective at eliciting the emotional response from dining room patrons and from his growing ig community. The restaurant’s exhibitionist designer kitchen – eye catching and on full display behind a well-lit storefront window – is open not to the dining room but to the outside world of mostly indifferent flaneurs and residents of its quaint Crocetta corner. But the real highlight is at the dinner table, experienced in five stages: doubt, cognitive estrangement, suspension of disbelief, the first bite, definitive and conclusive contentment… hopefully in that order. Hurry and get a taste for yourself – while its reservation queue is manageable and before its still digestible prices inevitably inflate – just don’t tell anyone; wouldn’t want the sudden in-rush of diners upset the delicate balance of haute cuisine in an intimate setting, the voyeuristic pleasure of top notch presentation, the flawless service, offered for all of EUR 80, including the wine (even though Stefano Sforza and his ingenious team clearly deserve nothing less).
- A refined built environment that reflects Torino’s royal aspirations and patrician spirit. I would argue the regal and aristocratic Torino is more deeply rooted and omnipresent in the city today than its legacy of recent industrial development and the age of the machine. The industry of the the late 19th and 20th centuries came and went, lasting – ok, reigning for – barely a century, followed by a successful post-industrial renewal boom, in turn boosted by the Olympics a decade ago, a trend that continues with some momentum to this day. But the transformation of this garrison town into a capital of an absolutist dynastic state had largely taken shape by 1680, and to a master plan largely completed by 1610. Each succeeding Savoy ruler from the 1560’s on took personal interest and significant pride in getting involved firsthand in the building projects, alongside their architects, as they worked to create, curate, and leverage their built environment to give the ducal court a royal status. By the 18th century, this city became the most centrally planned, rational, uniform, and finest in all of W Europe. Already in the 17th century, Gianlorenzo Bernini himself, world’s greatest baroque sculptor and author of Rome’s most famous masterpieces, declared the centrally planned streets and squares of Torino without equal anywhere in Italy. Even as catholic baroque fell out of favor and out of fashion in the century that followed – declared incomprehensibly overwrought and unexplainably nuanced anachronism, replaced by the strict and clean lines of Neoclassicism and the Enlightenment – the Savoy capital managed to keep its positive image among the early guidebooks of mid 1700’s that proclaimed it to be the envy of other cities of Europe. Thanks, no doubt, to the unified sameness, tiresome uniformity, and symmetry of its enlightened planning, its well-built ensemble of severe elegance, its progressive grid layout of recently widened streets and extended piazzas – and to having far fewer historical layers than others Italian cities. Charles de Brosses of Burgundy found Torino to be most beautiful city of Italy, and perhaps of Europe, where ‘nothing is outstandingly beautiful, but all equally so, and nothing is mediocre’. Torino remained ‘the finest city in Europe’ for Stendhal in the 1800’s. The staying power of its original master beautification plan, and the success of its post-industrial adaptation and redevelopment three centuries later both in debt to the city planners’ ingenuity.
- Known for its nuanced and sophisticated foodie scene – Piemonte is the royalty of Italy’s, and old world’s, finest wine traditions and is the country’s food capital – but you already knew that. Aperitivo hour is taken at least as seriously as in other N Italian cities – the happy hour scene here is very local and offers plenty of excuses for an impromptu glass and a bite every now and then, with no shortage of beautiful people, and no tourists.
- Torino offers real sit down café experience, rare in a country that gave us the espresso bar counter, standing room only (Milan and Trieste have their own café culture but it’s thoroughly Austria; the Torino scene is French and Belle Époque). Slow Food – the anti fast food movement – originated here in the ‘70s (more precisely in the nearby town of Bra to the South and East and just outside of Alba but Torino can take credit for this and other Field to Fork variations on the theme that followed).
- When it comes to dark chocolate, only the Flemish and the French come close in refinement – the tradition with single-origin, artisanal chocolates found at places like Guido Gobino or Guido Castagna, like many things in Torino, go back 400 years, to the Savoy court beginnings. Gianduja, the local hazelnut chocolate favorite of younger but still respectable vintage, dates back to the Napoleonic Wars. Good luck competing with those perfected, closely guarded, centuries old recipes. And not the chocolate alone. Truffles. Barolo. Spumante. Martini and Cinzano. Americano and Negroni. They all come from Torino or the surrounding Piemonte countryside. And Eataly, the quintessential Piedmontese culinary experience so successfully productised and packaged for export to fans of Italian style and culture around the world, had its debut here.
- No lack of historic events here, including what should be Italy’s brightest moments – Camillo Cavour’s connection to Napoleon III, Garibaldi’s Risorgimento, Vittorio Emanuele‘s unification under the House of Savoy‘s crown of Sardinia and Piemonte. As a result, ‘Piedmont’ is now used as a generic trademark of any irredentist movement or secessionist insurgency of a rebellious border province.
- Main beneficiary of the unification and of the North vs South polarization that followed. The wars of the unification led by the Piemontese – through acquisition of Central Italian states, annexation and conquest of the South – accrued to the benefit of Torino and the NW Italy, mostly at the expense of Naples and its Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The contrasts of juxtaposition of the smaller and newer but orderly and regimented Torino and the bustling but chaotic and unplanned Naples, the capitals of the Northern and the Southern kingdoms, could not be greater. By the early 1700’s Naples had risen to Europe’s 3rd largest city after London and Paris and perhaps the 4th largest by the late1700’s having ceded its place to Vienna – centuries of Spanish viceroy rule established Italy’s largest and most international court, ruled by a branch of the Bourbon dynasty intermarried with the Austrian Habsburgs – and was four to five times larger and more populous than Torino, the capital of the Northern kingdom, at the time. Notwithstanding, the unification under the House of Savoy settled the rivalry between the expanding Kingdom of Sardinia and Piemonte on the one hand and the larger Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on the other – in favor of Torino and the North. And set the stage for the two speed development of Italy going forward.
- Don’t underestimate the sheer number of places of interest and general sightseeing eye candy – the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the royal residences in the city center and along a belt of nearby royal country palaces, the marble and exposed brick church facades, the baroque piazzas, the great rooftop views over Piazza Vittorio Veneto and the Alps from the top of the high quality Cinema Museum in Mole Antonelliana. This building – the world’s tallest masonry structure at 165m, a height competitive with the tallest of Northern Europe’s Gothic cathedrals – was originally conceived as the city’s first synagogue after Torino’s Jewish community was granted religious freedom in 1848; the unfinished building abandoned by the community after two decades of construction once the funds ran out but only after an ambitious transformation of the plans that took the tower to dizzying heights. Also recommended are the Egyptian museum, the world’s largest outside Egypt, Gianni Agnelli’s Pinacoteca, and the contemporary art museum at Castello di Rivoli just W of the city center. Not to b elect out are OGR, Officine Grandi Riparazioni, is a massive multimedia cultural center reclaimed in the process of post industrial decommissioning, Museo d’Arte Contemporania, Italy’s largest contemporary art museum at Castillo di Rivoli, or the exhibition venue at Reggio Venaria in Venaria Reale, a royal park and villa just outside Torino that opened in 2007 upon completion of Europe’s largest historical restoration and rehabilitation project.
- More than many cities, Torino deserves a look from a high viewing point. This city’s orderly, geometric panorama could not differ more from Genoa’s skyline. The chaotic cityscape of the maritime republic on the Ligurian coast is almost southern in character; it is split among a multitude of elevations and defined by silver mansard rooftops punctuated by dormer windows that encircle deep open courtyards adorned with exuberant detail – one would expect nothing less from the highly individualistic, vertical city where instead a single ruler, an oligarchy of patrician families competed for dominance through spatial and architectonic self-expression. In deep contrast, Torino’s skyline of shallow rooftops, running the length of entire rectilinear blocks in a single plane of red tile grid – and its faux three tier elevations designed to hide two extra stories – show the hand of its royal central planners. Here, the restrained roofs are enriched with a recurrent motif of angular chimneys and regularly distributed dormers – echoing the rows of communal balconies and seemingly infinite arcaded porticoes equal in height to the width of the street along what appears to be continuous city-block-long facades along via Po and via Garibaldi – foreshadow the uniformity that would appear in Napoleon’s rue de Rivoli in Paris a century later. Simplicity and rigor of clean lines is not all bad, and from time to time was valued at a premium: in W Europe of the 1700’s the baroque masterpieces by Guarini and Juvarra would be discounted and the monumental but monotonous uniformity of straight rectilinear blocks, wide streets, and large squares would get the highest praise. In 1674, it took Amedeo di Castellamonte just six such block-long buildings with porticoed facades to span the entire 740m length of Via Po all the way from Piazza Castello to the entry to the semi enclosed space of Piazza Vittorio. So masterful was the design by Carlo Emanuele’s architect and planner back in the day that the stately 1.25km long pathway from the Royal Palace to the bank of the Po remains Torino’s most elegant and popular pedestrian and commercial thoroughfare to this day.
- Not all Turin is old regime. Carlo Alberto’s reforms of 1848 and the expansion of the bourgeois city with new residential blocks developed in the Neoclassical then Art Nouveau manner – elsewhere known as Secession, Jugendstil or Modernism, and locally as Liberty Style – brought the opening of new streets, public works, parks, exhibitions, and factories: a development momentum that owes much to the financial confidence and commercial liveliness of local professional elites of the era. Turn of the twentieth century commercial Galleria Subalpina and Galleria San Federico right next to the royal quarter – in extent and scale, more Parisian arcades of the 1830’s than Galleria Vittorio Emanuele of Milan or that of Umberto I in Naples – leave a familiar spatial and structural signature of a cosmopolitan turn off the twentieth century city. Their bourgeois, lived-in character adds conviction to a decidedly positive impression already left by the low key, aristocratic Turin. If the city’s expansion had been underwritten by the transformation from a garrison town to a capital in the 1600’s, its crowning achievement was defined by the elevation of its status from the seat of a Baroque duchy to the first capital of a larger kingdom of the 1700’s and the unified Italian nation state in the 1800’s. Having procured independence for Italy, Torino resisted the loss of its capital status – first to Florence in 1864, a less foreign and more centrally located cultural capital where the true Italian language of Petrarch and Dante was spoken, and later to Rome in 1871 – and the transfers of locally produced wealth to Italy’s South that followed.
- Street furniture doesn’t disappoint. Torino has Europe’s largest porticoed urban area, at 11 miles long it is impressive in its linear consistency even if not as famous as the covered walkways of Bologna, which form a nominally longer gallery, and not as stunning as Genoa’s sidewalk arcades along via XX Settembre.
- Europe’s epicenter of baroque left Rome after reaching its pinnacle under Bernini and Borromini in 1660’s and moved briefly to Torino – before coming to Vienna and settling there for real after the Turkish siege was lifted in 1683.
- A quick historical bridge to Vienna suggests that this association is not coincidental, that Torino was not a blip on the screen or a flavor of the month, its baroque prominence fully legitimate. A closer examination reveals that the unrivaled and much admired baroque environment of Vienna can be declared a derivative of that of Torino, at least in part, and was intensely influenced by the immediately preceding outburst of artistic creativity right here in Piemonte. Conclusively rejected by France in the 1660s when Louis XIV put a stop to the spigot of Italian influence, the baroque found its great outlet at the Imperial court in Vienna that openly welcomed it, temporarily parking itself in the Savoy capital until the siege of Vienna was lifted.
- There are two central figures on this bridge. One is Prince Eugene of Savoy, a distinguished Italian nobleman and great grandson of Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy, he was born in France and raised in the court of Louis XIV but in a role reversal rare for a Savoy aristocrat, abandoned his French sovereign to serve his arch enemy, eventually rising to Field Marshall of the Holy Roman Empire and Commander in Chief of Imperial army. According to Napoleon, Prince Eugene was one of Europe’s top military commanders of all times, on par with Frederick the Great, Gustavus Adolphus, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar, no less. Credited with liberating Vienna from the Turkish siege of 1683 at the age of twenty, despite the adult supervision and the decisive victory brought by Jan Sobieski, King of Poland, who deserves the credit instead, Prince Eugene of Savoy went on to lead the Imperial army in the Wars of Spanish, Austrian, and Polish Succession and in the campaigns in Hungary and the Balkans; serving three different Holy Roman Emperors as a general and as a diplomat, he defended Austrian interests, won most battles against the French and ended the threat from the Ottomans.
- The other is Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt, Eugene’s military engineer and favorite architect who followed him to Vienna and, after his appointment as court engineer to the Habsburgs, turned to civilian architecture. In Vienna, Hildebrandt completed the beautiful church of St Peter just North of Graben, several aristocratic residences throughout the city such as palais Kinsky, palais Harach, palais Auersperg, palais Stahremberg, palais Schwarzenberg, the Imperial Chancellery wing of the Imperial Hofburg, as well as the recently reopened Eugene of Savoy’s winter palace and the iconic Belvedere, Eugene’s grandiose summer palace complex and Vienna’s largest aristocratic residence excluding the Habsburg family possessions. In fact, Hildebrandt, along with Fischer von Erlach, authored most of Vienna’s untold palaces and churches. He followed Eugene outside the capital creating a number of residences for the Prince throughout the hereditary Habsburg lands of Central Europe and beyond, adding his voice to the chorus of Italian influences by Bernini, Guarini, Fontana that reached the region through the conduit of Vienna. This historical connection holds the key to the striking resemblance between the skyline of Eugene’s Upper Belvedere in Vienna and that of Stupinigi, the impressive royal hunting lodge just outside Torino.
- But the baroque legacy of the Savoy capital doesn’t end with a transfer to Vienna of its library of stylistic objects. A diligent wanderer will notice the quotations of Guarini and signatures of Juvarra clearly recognizable in the court and church architecture of Mafra, Portugal’s one of a kind royal palace-monastery-church complex. These two outstanding builders directly influenced the look and shape of major landmarks across capital cities of the Continent, from the Iberian Peninsula to Bohemia, Silesia, and Bavaria in Central Europe. Guarini‘s angular geometry of brick interlacements, oval plans, and weightless vaults and Juvarra‘s striking designs and lighting effects are what king Joao V turned to when he decided to reflect Portugal’s status of Europe’s richest country by spending the proceeds from his newly acquired Brazilian gold and diamonds to create a second Rome or at least to outdo Madrid’s Escorial. The ubiquitous convex and concave exposed brick surfaces of their works exert almost palpable pressure on the viewer, their compilation of multilayered forms and elaborately sculpted frames presents a highly original design that is innovative for its time and tough to find elsewhere
- It is to Guarino Guarini and Filippo Juvarra that this Piemontese city offers such a distinctive display of baroque genius. These are Torino’s Bernini and Borromini, despite a lack of the characteristic chronological overlap between Guarini and Juvarra. The legacy of this duo – often mentioned in the same breath as the giants of Roman baroque – invokes parallels with the rival studios of Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini active in Rome only a few decades earlier. Guarini’s – in the city’s church architecture of the mid-to-late 1600’s (a renaissance man, he had been a mathematician and a philosopher before turning to world class architecture). Juvarra’s – in the urban planning and secular architecture of the villa, the palatial hunting lodge, and the royal palace complex of the early 1700’s (he studied in the studio of Carlo Fontana, Baroque Rome’s finest, and proceeded to perhaps outshine his mentors). Many of their baroque churches in Torino are of the architectonic quality worthy of Rome at the height of its political and artistic influence.
- This place has the ingredients of a true royal capital larger Italian cities lack – the emphasis here is on the production of baroque of the imperial variety rather than of garden baroque. It is – much like Vienna – a newer city, having played a lesser role in medieval times, it got its second wind and started rising when the great Italian city republics were at or past their peak.
- Torino owes its rare and very visible imperial dimension to a decision by Emanuele Filiberto in the 1550’s to relocate his residence – from Savoy on the French side of today’s border right across the Maritime Alps to his Piemontese possessions – that sealed the city’s role as the capital of the Duchy and unleashed its orderly expansion. Upgraded from Duchy to Kingdom after the acquisition of Sardinia in 1720, Piemonte under the Savoy dynasty eventually consolidated its reign over all of unified Italy –
- The country before the unification was known as Kingdom of Sardinia and Piedmont; the Kingdom of Italy was formed with the House of Savoy at its head, and with Torino as its first capital.
- Purposeful expansion of the medieval city by the Dukes of Savoy in the 16th and 17th centuries started from its core, with redesign by Vitozzi, the Duke’s First Architect, of the power complex on piazza del Castello into a new symbolic and ceremonial epicenter of the Duchy along the lines of Renaissance city planning. It attached the new monumental Palazzo Madama to the ancient Castle of the Acaia in the middle of the piazza, and structurally integrated the Secretariat and Royal Archives, the Mint, the Military Academy and Riding Academy into the Palazzo Reale and its Giardini Reale, linking various public spaces and structures together. Vitozzi continued with the layout of via Roma, which today links the piazza Castello with the Porta Nuova train station. At the time, creation of the built environment was much less compartmentalised than it has become, the practice of architect and engineer, secular and religious architecture, or civilian and military construction often inseparable.
- The great centralized expansion of the 17th century carried out by Carlo and Amadeo Castellamonte was accompanied by the addition of important residential palaces for the nobility to the W and S of the piazza Castello complex. Guarino Guarini’s outstanding contribution brought the palazzo Carignano with its elaborate convex and concave exposed brick façade surfaces and the palazzo Provana di Collegno. Important noble residences of transformational design by others – notably, Alferi and Michelangelo Garove – include palazzo Asinari di San Marzano, palazzo Faletti di Barolo, and palazzo Graneri della Roccia (three of Torino’s most significant), as well as the Collegio dei Nobili, palazzo Lascaris, and palazzo Taparelli d’Azeglio, By then Torino was perhaps Europe’s most modernized city, with a uniform urban environment of new streets and well-integrated secular/palatial and ecclesiastic structures.
- During Torino’s golden age in the 18th century, the royal city saw important additions or upgrades to the power complex by Filippo Juvarra – the elaborate and monumental new Artillery Arsenal, the palazzo Roero di Guarene, the palazzo del Senato, the façade modernization of the palazzo Madama, and the completion of the palazzo dell’Universita are some of the examples. New palaces added by others include the palazzo Saluzzo Paesana, Torino’s largest and most complex noble aristocratic residence, and the palazzo Benso di Cavour for the family of the future Italian statesman who led the unification, plus the layout of new streets and realignment of public spaces under a centrally planned unitary scheme.
- Among the many beautiful baroque churches added in the 17th century are several by Guarino Guarini – the church of San Lorenzo and the chapel of the Holy Shroud are his most famous, are characterized by unusual geometric intensity, complexity of form and lighting, the interiors of their domes consisting of many overlapping segmental arches – and some completed by Filippo Juvarra – the church of Santa Teresa, the church of Santa Christina, his first work in Torino, its curved facade with eccentric detailing would not be out of place in Rome and borrows heavily form Bernini and Borromini.
- Torino is encircled by an impressive circuit of over a dozen – 23 to be exact – royal residences dating back from 16th-17th centuries was built for several generations of Savoy rulers from Emanuel Filiberto and Carlo Emanuele on, continually redesigned and expanded between late 1500s and late 1700s. These residences include –
- The uniquely beautiful Palazzina di Caccia Stupinigi, a palatial hunting lodge and park that wouldn’t look out of place in the middle of Vienna and could rival anything there. It is just on the S edge of town, 20 min from Palazzo Reale
- The grandiose redevelopment of the Castle of Rivoli by Filippo Juvarra,
- The Castle of Venaria Reale, the most extensive of Savoy residences later looted by Napoleon, the initial French inspired palace expanded by Juvarra in the 18th century into today’s colossal complex, complete with his near perfect Grande Galleria,
- The imposing Castle of Valentino with its winged pavilions and arcaded galleries that reads like a dictionary of French classicism and appropriately serves as the faculty of Architecture of the Torino Polytechnic,
- The medieval Castlello di Moncalieri and the Castle of Aglie,
- The Castle of Racconigi, transformed not only by Guarini but also by Andre Le Norte – best known for his high profile work for Louis XIV in and around Paris as the landscape architect of the gardens of Versailles, Vaux-le-Vicomte, and Fontainebleau, and of the westward extension of the Tuileries gardens from the Louvre into what would later become the Champs Elysees – only to be redeveloped twice in later centuries.
- I would pick two of the royal residences – Venaria Reale and Stupinigi – the largest and the most compact, respectively.
- The immense and extraordinarily beautiful Venaria Reale, sited just at the NW edge of greater Torino, just 8km from the center, is easily the most imposing of the 17th century Savoy residences forming a belt around town and one of the most important artistic sites in all of Italy, an impossibly high bar.
- This long overlooked treasure was recently restored to Italy’s artistic patrimony and offers the best of Europe’s baroque urban planning and the best in the building design and interior detailing of that time, all in one. It is stunning in real life and even more impressive on paper – between the palace, the garden, and the outbuildings it covers 10 million SF of space, which contain 1.2 million SF of floor area, and the Reggio palace alone is one of Europe’s largest at 800,000 SF. Impressive but customary stats aside, when measured in more esoteric terms, it punches equally above its weight – try to visualize its 2 million SF of decorative stucco and plaster work, 50,000 SF of frescos, or close to 40,000 works of art.
- Reopened just a decade ago after a 20 year long renovation involving 800 workers at 30 job sites, and widely considered among the most successful restoration programs carried out in recent years, the palace known as Reggio is Italy’s top five visitor destination (even if the host city itself is far from its top five most visited, so plan your visit accordingly). The site has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, and now serves as a multipurpose art exhibition and concert venue with a daily cultural agenda. It functions as a museum of the palace itself. It includes multiple spaces – individual pavilions formerly used as living quarters, separated by rows of trees; a belvedere; promenades; interior courtyards – and 80 hectares of formal French gardens (the original gardens disappeared, current landscaping is a product of a very large scale restoration involving 50,000 newly planted trees).
- Started, like other Savoy summer residences, as a hunting lodge, the Reggio palace was expanded in early 18th century before being abandoned in favor of Palazzina Stupinigi nearby. Filippo Juvarra left his mark on the expansion, adding the chapel of Sant’Uberto, massive stables totaling 130,000 SF now used as exhibition space and art restoration center, and the Galleria Grande, his signature masterpiece addition that links older apartments of the King and the Crown Prince, presenting a unified façade overlooking the formal gardens. The absolutely stunning Galleria Grande space is restrained and monochromatic, it is remarkable for its generous proportions – 80m long x 15m high – its elaborate stucco work serving as its main highlight, accentuated by complex interplay of light streaming from its 44 floor to ceiling arched windows and 22 dormers in the vertical segments of the vaulted roof.
- The list of superlatives doesn’t end here, the Reggio complex is not far from La Mandria, Europe’s largest enclosed park measuring 6,000 hectares in area – together with its sizable Borgo Castello, it also formed part of the former Savoy property.
- Venaria, the nearby town and the host site for the palace, was planned as a uniform and rigorously beautiful backdrop to the royal complex, the layout of its historic center is worth a separate comment. It is one of Europe’s best examples of 17th century central planning – before Nancy took over this title a bit later, in early 1700s, when the ex King of Poland Stanislaw Leczszinsky was installed there as the Duke of Lorraine by his son in law, Louis XV.
- Venaria’s strictly geometric and symmetrical layout, its main longitudinal street aligned with the main axis of the palace, was designed as a ceremonial route leading to it. This project is even more impressive considering that nation state was just recently born as a concept as larger W European absolute monarchies secured centralized power within national boundaries. The town’s street cuts through a medallion shaped enclosed square decorated with churches, the entire route is porticoed, harmonious, all its linear and spatial dimensions perfectly proportioned. As inspiring as this place is, I would resist the temptation and try to avoid its somewhat touristy eating establishments.
- And finally, the iconic Stupinigi royal lodge just 6mi SW of the city – last but definitely not least, this stunning and perfectly complete masterpiece is worth a stop and a look inside – for its Instagram worthiness of its incredible vaulted, frescoed central banquet hall and the geometry of its wing pavilions, if nothing else. But for the best perspective of the grounds and the best line of sight over the spatial plan of the structure, consider buying a camera drone – if you are going to do it anywhere, Stupinigi is as good a place as any.
