Torino 1914-1976

This book guides us through the urban and architectural growth of twentieth century Turin, a so-called ville industrielle. Primarily, it starts us off with the hitherto unexplored papers and designs produced by Fiat’s construction division, the Servizio Costruzioni e Impianti. From this angle, authors Michela Comba and Rita D’Attorre examine construction as the distinctive soul of Italian Fordism and offer us an original interpretation of what provincial pride used to call the company town.
The topography of the capital of the Italian heavy industry developed with its factories, residential quarters, office buildings, exhibition centers, schools and universities. The topography itself reflected the various steps in the setup of how professional organizations were structured and the phases gone through when production in heavy industry became international in strict response to the wartime events in that short century. The book’s analysis begins with the creation of the first industrial district around the northern city limits at the end of the nineteenth century and ends with the projects and significant journeys of some of the leading figures of Turin architecture from the 1910s to the mid-1970s.

Contents

Introduction

A Gilded Age

1. City gateaway
2. The designs of Agnelli and Trucco
3. An immense mail ship
4. A building all stitched
5. A City for Houses: Public and private models
6. Turin in the 1920s. The garden-city model and the second IACP period

The miracle of Italian engineering

7. Around and about RIV: Turin between Val Chisone and Moscow
8. A secret operation
9. Waiting for zoning
10. From Mirafiori to Latin America: An Industrial city beyond its limits
11. Affordable Housing and Big Business. The Ina-Casa plan and the collaboration with Fiat
12. The Fiat housing plans: Merit, seniority and company loyalty

The war over petrolium and delocalizations

13. Area plans and housing prefabrication
14. Fiat residences outside of Turin
15. Hybrids: Italian Fordism in Togliattiand the elevated highway system in Turin
16. Fiat housing policies and models in southern Italy
17. Between United States and Iran