Turin, while boasting an architectural landscape predominantly characterized by the
Juvarra-esque connotation of the numerous noble palaces and Savoy residences, in the two decades between the 19th and 20th centuries allowed itself to be permeated by this new stylistic current. Initially known as "new art" or, according to Turin journalist Emilio Thovez, "floral art," this new style astonished for being so "faithfully naturalistic and in substance distinctly decorative." Following the editions of the
International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art, Turin saw the growing proliferation of this new style in the predominantly architectural sphere, celebrating a kind of "renaissance of the decorative arts," making use of contributions from leading authors of the time such as
Raimondo D'Aronco and the Turin-born
Pietro Fenoglio, who made a name for himself through his fruitful activity as an engineer and who made Turin's Art Nouveau one of the most shining and coherent examples of the varied Italian architectural scene of the time. A significant contribution also came from industry, which, involved in the forefront of the renewal process in the Piedmontese capital, played the role of privileged client but also of interlocutor able to offer the technique and solid support for the benefit of those workers necessary for the full affirmation of this new current in Turin. Decisive, to cite one example, was the work of the Turin-based Impresa Porcheddu, which, owing to the resourcefulness of its owner Giovanni Antonio Porcheddu, as early as 1895 was the first construction company to import and use exclusively for Italy the innovative
Systéme Hennebique, as well as fostering a climate that contributed to the erection of a variety of public and private buildings, thus decreeing the definitive consecration of Art Nouveau as the new dominant artistic style. A further contribution was also made by the publishing industry, which in Turin counted the presence of important publishers such as Camilla & Bertolero, Crudo & Lattuada, Editrice Libraria F.lli Fiandesio & C. and the longest-lived of them all, Roux and Viarengo, all active since the late nineteenth century. The former as early as 1889 published the periodical ''L'architettura pratica'', a specialized magazine founded by the architect Andrea Donghi and later directed by his colleague Giuseppe Momo. The furniture sector was also an active participant in the flourishing Art Nouveau period, an excellent field for the applied arts; although still not part of an industrial reality, it could count on competent workers and represented a highly appreciated craftsmanship. Some notable exponents are the Albano&Macario glassworks, which among its various works produced the Solferino Terrace, and the Torinese furniture factory F. Cesare Gandolfo that also produced many furnishings for cafes, restaurants and hotels, including the Albergo Rocciamelone in
Usseglio for which it made the whole interior design. Turin thus lived intensely the Art Nouveau season, which, although relatively short-lived, became an important point of reference for Italy, On the wave of the exposition's success, Turin continued to be a fertile ground for a variety of experiments, albeit very coherent and restrained, by a large group of architects and engineers such as: Eugenio Ballatore di Rosana, Angelo Evasio Barberis, Giovanni Battista Benazzo, Pietro Betta, Eugenio Bonelli, Paolo Burzio,
Carlo Ceppi, Camillo Dolza, Andrea Donghi, Michele Frapolli, Giuseppe Gallo, Giuseppe Gatti, Giovanni Gribodo, Quinto Grupallo, Gottardo Gussoni, Giuseppe Hendel, Giacomo Mattè Trucco, Eugenio Mollino,
Giuseppe Momo, Ludovico Peracchio, Alfredo Premoli, Giovanni Reycend,
Annibale Rigotti, Paolo Saccarelli, Carlo Sgarbi, Annibale Tioli, Giovanni Tirone, Giovanni Vacchetta, Antonio Vandone di Cortemilia, Giuseppe Velati Bellini, Genesio Vivarelli; however, the most prolific figure and undisputed protagonist of Turin's Art Nouveau was
Pietro Fenoglio.
Fenoglio's work The major protagonist of Art Nouveau in Turin was Pietro Fenoglio, whose prolific activity delivered to Turin some of the greatest Italian examples of this new style. He devoted himself for about thirteen years to the realization of more than three hundred projects including villas and palaces, some of them concentrated in the area of Corso Francia and adjacent streets, as well as a variety of industrial buildings commissioned by Turin's new ruling class; however, his contribution was not only that of an esteemed professional, he was also called upon to intervene at the political level, holding positions as a city councilor and consultant for the study of the new town plan completed in 1908. Fenoglio was also among the organizers of the 1902 and 1911 editions of the International Exhibition, but he was also active in the field of publishing, appearing among the founders and most important contributors to the magazine ''L'architettura italiana moderna''. At the same time as his intense architectural activity, he also became part of the emerging industrial and financial bourgeoisie in Turin, enriching his skills and intensifying his influence in the construction sector; Fenoglio held the position of vice-president of the well-known Impresa Porcheddu, of the Società Anonima Cementi del Monferrato, as well as that of partner of the
Accomandita Ceirano & C. and managing director of the nascent
Banca Commerciale Italiana. the famous
Villa Scott (1902), a triumph of
loggias,
turrets,
stained-glass windows,
bay windows, and, above all, his best-known and most appreciated work:
Casa Fenoglio-Lafleur (1902), considered "the most significant example of Art Nouveau style in Italy." Other noteworthy buildings that repurposed decorative elements derived from the success of Casa Fenoglio-Lafleur are Casa Rossi-Galateri (1903) on Via Passalacqua and Casa Girardi (1904) at 54 Via Cibrario. Fenoglio's work turned out to be relatively short-lived but fruitful, and numerous other similar buildings can also be mentioned: Casa Rey (1904), Casa Boffa-Costa (1904), Casa Macciotta (1904), Casa Balbis (1905), Casa
Ina (1906), Casa Guelpa (1907), until he pushed out of
Piedmont, with the realization of the Villa Magni-Rizzoli in
Canzo, near
Como. Fenoglio also had as clients the nascent world of industry, which found Turin a favorable place to establish headquarters for new settlements. Among the best known are: the Fiorio Tannery (1900), the Boero Plant (1905), the Ballada Foundries (1906), the Officine Diatto automobile plant (1907), and the large building of Italy's first brewery,
The Leumann Village With his experience in industrial factory design, Fenoglio was also involved in the vast Leumann Village project. It was the brainchild of an entrepreneur of Swiss origin, Napoleone Leumann, who moved his textile company's factory from
Voghera to
Turin, benefiting from the facilities offered by the Piedmontese capital, a remnant of the capital's disputed move first to
Florence and then to
Rome; in addition, the ample supply of skilled labor at reduced costs completed the process of attracting capital and entrepreneurs, including foreign ones such as Abegg, Geisser, Kind, Metzger, Menier, Remmert, and Scott, contributing to making Turin the new capital of industry. The choice fell on the vast plot of land of about 60,000 sq. m. in the countryside surrounding
Collegno, at that time a small town on the outskirts of the city. Also crucial in the choice of the site was the presence of
irrigation canals and the proximity of the new railway, which, running along the axis of today's Corso Francia, allowed a rapid connection with
Turin, nearby
Rivoli but also with the
Susa Valley and France through the new
Fréjus tunnel. The complex, designed between 1875 and 1907 by
Pietro Fenoglio, consists of two residential areas on the side of the textile factory, which ceased operations in 2007, originally housing about a thousand people including workers, employees and their families. It still includes within it 59 cottages and houses divided into 120 dwellings, each provided from the beginning with attached toilets and a shared garden on the ground floor. In addition to the cotton mill, dwellings, public baths, the "Wera Leumann" kindergarten and school, Fenoglio also designed the church of St. Elizabeth: one of the very few in the world built in Art Nouveau style, along with
Otto Wagner's
St. Leopold Church in Vienna.
Other figures of Turin's Art Nouveau Despite the mainly
Baroque connotation of the
Guarini and
Juvarrian school, the architectural heritage of the old
Savoy capital still preserves almost intact important Art Nouveau vestiges and the presence of architecture from that period is still perceptible in some central areas of the capital such as the districts of the historic center, the Crocetta, San Salvario, the hill but with an absolute predominance in the area including the San Donato and Cit Turin districts. Anyway art nouvau buildings are spread all over Turin, also in industrial districts of the north area The symbols of some early experiments that, from a still evidently eclectic approach so cherished by
Carlo Ceppi, nonetheless hint at Art Nouveau protostyles are Palazzo Bellia (1898) and Palazzo Priotti (1900). There Ceppi knew how to blend Baroque and eclectic stylistic features with Art Nouveau sinuosity and, in the case of Palazzo Bellia, made extensive use of
bay windows,
turrets and trefoil arches, making it one of the most characteristic buildings in the central Via Pietro Micca. A pupil of Carlo Ceppi, the prolific
Pietro Fenoglio built his success on the
Art Nouveau style, and his stylistic influence inspired numerous other architects, fueling a growing and fruitful competition that made Turin's Art Nouveau season noteworthy. The antagonism of the large group of architects who worked in Turin during these years also saw different currents of the same style flourish; architect Pietro Betta, for example, differed to embrace a style more traceable to the
sezessionstil and in whose studio young architects such as Domenico Soldiero Morelli and Armando Melis de Villa, protagonists of the later season of
Italian Rationalism, were trained. Betta's work was distinguished by its more monumental approach, influenced by classical elements skillfully combined with secessionist stylistic features, the most notable example of which appears in the Avezzano House (1912) in the Crocetta district, where the façade is punctuated by a sequence of large projecting
Corinthian columns supported by taurine
protomes and "chained" to a series of bay windows. Other markedly Secessionist examples are Casa Bonelli (1904), the residence of the same architect Bonelli, whose elevations are characterized by very distinctive French windows surrounded by a wide circular frame bearing a finely decorated ornamentation, and Casa Mussini, an austere residential building in the Precollina, designed by architect Ferrari in 1914. Another exponent close to Pietro Betta's design vocabulary was architect
Annibale Rigotti, who, on the corner of Via Vassalli Eandi with Via Principi d'Acaja, not far from Fenoglio's Casa Ina, designed Casa Baravalle (1902), a single-family villa recognizable by its blue walls and characterized by geometric decorations, with extremely sober forms. There Rigotti, already the author of several pavilions at the 1902 International Exhibition, seems almost to anticipate the rigor that would prevail in the later
Deco style. From 1902 onward, on the wave of the success of the expositions, Art Nouveau spread throughout the city, contributing to its growth. The city's concomitant industrial vocation also attracted some new labor, and the demand for housing grew to such an extent that the urban fabric expanded. With the advent of electricity and its increasing diffusion, industries proliferated and established new settlements on the outskirts of the city, permanently abandoning the San Donato district and the pre-hill area, a forced choice until the motive force was relegated to the hydraulic power of the mills and jacks that rose in the areas characterized by steep gradients. The San Salvario district, close to the Valentino Park and where the expositions of those years were held, was precisely one of the first to develop new blocks of industrial establishments and residential housing, sometimes modifying the elevations of existing buildings or requesting permission for design variations so that buildings with a "contemporary" appearance could be constructed. In addition to the numerous rented dwellings in the nearby Via Pietro Giuria, Via Saluzzo, and Via Madama Cristina, Villa Javelli, the Turin home that
D'Aronco designed and had built for his wife, also arose in San Salvario; Even the world of industry, as mentioned above, was not indifferent to the unprecedented sinuosity of the Art Nouveau style. In addition to the tanneries and breweries designed by Fenoglio in the San Donato area, the new headquarters of the Impresa Porcheddu also moved to the San Salvario district in 1903, so directly involved in the building frenzy of these decades, it occupied a low building that stood at Corso Valentino 20, that is, at the current former FIAT headquarters in Corso Marconi, which was built in the mid-1930s. The nascent automobile industry also played the role of commissioner; one of the first workshops to make use of a new structure according to the dictates of the new current was that of Accomandita Ceirano & C., Turin's first automobile workshop producing small
Welleyes-branded vehicles equipped with
internal-combustion engines and of which Fenoglio himself was a partner; it moved its operations in 1906 to the southern outskirts of the city, in what is now Corso Raffaello 17, in a building still easily recognizable by its access gates surrounded by large circular volutes in litho-cement.
Fiat itself, which was incorporated in Turin precisely in 1899, commissioned its first plant from the young architect Alfredo Premoli who, between 1904 and 1906, in Corso Dante Alighieri built the complex including the Scuola Allievi and the first factory, whose building is conspicuously framed by stylized floral motifs on the corners of the litho-cement cymaeas on the top bearing the acronym of the Turin car manufacturer. Also significant is the Galleria dell'Industria Subalpina, a structure inspired by typical Parisian passages albeit still a relic of
eclectic taste, which housed the famous Caffè Romano and is overlooked by the elegant Caffè Baratti & Milano, renovated in 1909; its entrance from the arcades of Piazza Castello exhibits a rich marble frame embellished with bronze
bas-reliefs and richly worked interiors, with extensive use of marble
intarsias and
stuccoes. In the Crocetta district, on the other hand, one can admire the remarkable Casa Maffei (1905), with railings and wrought ironwork by the Lombard master
Alessandro Mazzucotelli, designed by Antonio Vandone of Cortemilia; other examples of his to mention are some of the palaces on Corso Galileo Ferraris and Corso Re Umberto, characteristic for their phytomorphic decorations and extensive use of stained glass and wrought iron. However, the architect Vandone di Cortemilia also devoted himself to commercial premises: the Caffè Mulassano in central
Piazza Castello, whose small size does not, however, make the elegant
boiseries and mirrors, the
coffered ceiling in wood and leather and the numerous bronze decorations look out of place. Further works by Vandone di Cortemilia can also be found at the Monumental Cemetery, along with other works by
L. Bistolfi, D. Calandra, G. Casanova, C. Fumagalli, E. Rubino and A. Mazzucotelli. In the San Donato area, in addition to Casa Fenoglio on Via Piffetti, there are two examples dated 1908, by Giovanni Gribodo, and not far away there are other examples of Art Nouveau buildings on Via Durandi, Via Cibrario and again on Via Piffetti, at number 35; while by Giovan Battista Benazzo are Casa Tasca (1903), which flaunts floral decorations, circular geometric motifs and rich wrought iron decorations for railings and windows. In the neighboring Cìt Turìn district, along Via
Duchessa Jolanda, stand two palaces designed by Gottardo Gussoni, clear examples of late Art Nouveau dating from 1914; similarly, the buildings in the rear of Via Susa also repeat the same layout: a central courtyard with a low building at the bottom surmounted by a crenellated turret, an element that made Gussoni's Art Nouveau style increasingly characterized by an eclecticism that would later result in a true
neo-Gothic style, so much so that he became one of the favorite architects of Cav. Carrera.
Daniele Donghi and Camillo Dolza: two engineers in the service of public administration Turin's Art Nouveau season was also characterized by conspicuous construction of public buildings including schools, offices and public baths. Illustrious exponents emerged in this sector of local government, including engineer Daniele Donghi, formerly a professor of technical architecture in Milan and Padua, who for about fifteen years was head of the Technical Office of Public Works, a position he left at the turn of the similar position at the City of
Padua, that of
Venice, eventually becoming director of the Milan branch of the Porcheddu Company of Turin. Donghi was succeeded by engineer Camillo Dolza, who signed the most important public building projects in Turin in the early decades of the twentieth century, including the imposing building of the female high school "V. Monti" in corso Galileo Ferraris 11 (1900), the first Municipal Baths in via G. Saccarelli (1901), those in via O. Morgari (1905), those in Borgo Vanchiglia (1910), the Poste e Telegrafi building in via Alfieri (1908) and the new elementary school "Santorre di Santarosa" in via Braccini (1920). == Neo-Gothic style and the detractors of Art Nouveau ==