Turin, the Piazza Statuto

Noted especially for its political, financial and town-planning aspects, Turin’s Piazza Statuto still raises many unanswered questions on the cultural references adop- ted and the personalities involved in the refined architectural configuration of the uniform complex of buildings which characterize it. The new study highlights how, in the square built in 1864-1868, to celebrate the Statuto Albertino (the constitution granted by King Charles Albert), some interesting suggestions, aimed at proposing a national (Italian) architectural style, were by more spectacular and well known international classicism. The protagonists of the event were very valid technicians, though not endowed with any remarkable creativity, whose references came from Paris. In spite of the direct involvement of British funds in the intervention of Piazza Statuto, in Turin, as in the rest of Europe, French cultural influence was very strong. After the transfer of the capital city from Turin to Rome, the square, still unfinished, became an emblematic symbol of the modern industrial vocation of the city, which is well underlined by the insertion of the monument to the men who dug the Frejus Tunnel (1879). Nevertheless, literature underlines, even if in a partial and subjective way, how difficult it was to assign a symbolic purpose to that space.

Keywords: Turin - Statuto Albertino - Architecture - National Style

Filippo Morgantini, Torino, piazza dello statuto in "STORIA URBANA " 132/2011, pp 203-226, DOI: 10.3280/SU2011-132007