Fábrica da Fiat, Distrito de Lingotto, Turim, Itália

Fábrica da Fiat, Distrito de Lingotto, Turim, Itália
Distrito de Lingotto - Turim - Itália
Fotografia

After several trips to the USA and much debate, in 1915 the FIAT Board of Directors decides to build its new american-style plant in the Lingotto area, in keeping with the other plants already built in the southern part of the city. Construction began in July 1916. The design and the direction of the works were entrusted to the engineer Giacomo Matté Trucco; other well-known Turin engineers of the time also collaborated with him. In September that same year, work began on the central building, over 500 metres long. Work on the test track, perhaps the most famous symbol of the factory, was completed in 1921. The North and South Ramps, the other two symbols of the Lingotto, were completed in 1925 and 1926, when the office building, home to the company’s Board of Directors, was also inaugurated.
At that time, Turin was going through its first industrial revolution. Having started out with largely textile industries in the northern part of the city, it developed mostly mechanical production to the south, beginning with Borgo San Paolo, where Lancia was also based, continuing with the Lingotto area, and a few years later, reaching Mirafiori. The FIAT production plant in Mirafiori, designed from 1933 onwards, was inaugurated on 1 May 1939 and doubled in size in 1956.
Even before it was finished, the Lingotto building had become part of the popular Italian imagination: through Persico and Le Corbusier's interpretations of it, through the images of famous photographers, as well as the many visits to the factory by almost every major delegation visiting Italy. A place of work, it also almost immediately became the symbol of an industrial Italy that was trying its best to take off.
But with the opening of the Mirafiori plant, the Lingotto was made to look obsolete. Its multi-storey production line seemed anti-economical. Even prior to WWII, discussions began about its possible reuse. Nevertheless, the plant remained in production, employing thousands of factory workers, until 1982. In actual fact, discussions on possible new uses began in earnest at the end of the 1970s, and intensified in the wake of the 1980 crisis. These were interesting moments of confrontation in which companies, administrations, trade unions, intellectuals and technicians all took part. However, almost nobody questioned the need to preserve the plant building.
It was the company that took the initiative. Above all, Giovanni Agnelli and Cesare Romiti believed in the possibility of keeping the building in use while opening it up for new purposes. 20 architects, chosen from among the most famous in the world, were invited to present their projects on the possible new lease of life for the Lingotto building. The projects were presented in an exhibition organised in 1984 and discussed at various conferences and meetings. The following years were full of proposals, culminating in Turin City Council’s official commission in March 1985 awarded to Giuseppe de Rita, Roberto Guiducci and Renzo Piano to draw up a feasibility plan for its reuse. The ensuing plan was finally approved in November 1987. The city and the region approved the new executive plan, which foresaw changes to the allocation of purpose, in 1990.
Around that time, Turin experienced a deep crisis and a wide-ranging process of industrial reorganisation. The most visible consequence was the dismissal of industrial areas and the opening of a new social and urban planning season for the city. The study for the new urban regulatory plan was entrusted to the Vittorio Gregotti studio in 1986, the same year that FIAT commissioned the Piano studio to design the new Lingotto.
In the years between 1986 and 1991, when the construction work got underway, the Lingotto went through a phase of intense cultural activity. In the former press room, now the Congress Centre, concerts were held under the baton of Luciano Berio and Claudio Abbado, and plays directed by Luca Ronconi were performed. In June 1989, the exhibition on Russian and Soviet Art, 1870–1930 opened in the workshops, followed in 1992 by the exhibition on American Art, 1930–1970. The building also housed exhibitions on the architecture and urban planning of Turin as well as on Andy Warhol. Several spaces in the Lingotto area were the forbearers of a cultural season – still ongoing – making temporary use of industrial buildings for major cultural events.
The construction site of Renzo Piano’s Lingotto began Phase 1 in 1991, with the reorganisation and completion of the metal press building, intended for use to host trade fairs and major cultural events (from the Motor Show to the Book Fair). The renovation process was completed in March 1992. What had appeared to be a challenge that few believed in was beginning to take shape, and in the 11 years it took to achieve the reformed Lingotto, a whole host of people were involved: architects, technicians, firms, workers of all specialisations, companies, banks, institutions as well as company managers.
Work on the shop floors, the actual production line area, began in 1993, with a project covering two thirds of the factory (Phase 2) to be completed in three years. The third and final phase, which ended in September 2002, was undertaken in November 1999.
Renzo Piano’s design retained the 6×6 framework that had characterised Matté Trucco’s design as a measure of the building, while also managing to preserve the two façades and their reliefs linked to that framework. The new projects, the Auditorium, the Bolla, the Pinacoteca, the new Polytechnic, the Giardino delle Meraviglie were carried out in the inner yards, carving out a new space above the building’s skyline.
The Lingotto today stands as an multi-faceted and complex structure. One where culture (the polytechnic, the university, the auditorium); hospitality (the hotel, guest rooms); services (the congress centre, the exhibition area); and entertainment (the cinemas, the shopping centre) all coexist, intelligently distributed throughout. All this without following aping the banal models of North American shopping malls or megastructures. Unlike other similar operations, which become the mere replacement of what existed and, as often as not, whittling down past memories to a handful of symbols, the Lingotto today lays claim to a refined distribution of functions, of paths that – albeit specialised – allow for harmonious circulation between spaces, creating that urban fabric effect: essentially the possibility of blending people and functions without breaking apart the unity of that architecture – one that remains unique in Europe today. Texto da Pinacoteca Agnelli.

Nota do blog: Datas e autorias das imagens não obtidas.