Last week, in our summer
holiday peregrinations, we found ourselves in the hills to the east of Turin. I
blew all of my carefully accrued bonus points on a day of cars. First off was a
pilgrimage to the iconic Fiat factory at Lingotto, now a suburb of Turin. When
it was built in the 1920’s, it was the largest purpose built car factory in the world and was
considered to be strikingly avant garde, with Le Corbusier describing it as
‘one of the most impressive sights in industry’. Raw materials went in at the
ground floor and progressing upwards, the completed cars eventually emerged at the test track on
the fifth floor. Presumably, both Stuart’s and my Fiat 124 Sport Coupes will
have been first driven around here. Aah, sweet nostalgia!
The half kilometre long
building was the first to use modular reinforced concrete construction with a
repetition of columns, beams and floors. The most striking examples of this are
the elegant spiral ramps which rise to the rooftop track at each end of the
building.
Modern day access to the
rooftop track is somewhat incongruously via the 'Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli' gallery. Hence we were treated to the added bonus of a bunch of
Canalettos and a temporary exhibition on the prolific Gael Aulenti.
