On this trip from Lausanne to Tuscany, we stayed in the city of Turin (Torino) in two hotels which was not our usual practice. The reason for changing was because the second hotel is housed in the iconic, historic Lingotto FIAT car factory.
Built in the 1920s by FIAT, Lingotto was then the largest and most modern car manufacturing plant in Europe, both architecturally and in terms of car production. The 500m-long, five-storey building, had a volume of one million cubic metres. It is one of the best examples of early industrial architectural expression made of reinforced concrete.
Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino), Italy’s largest car maker is now owned by Stellantis, a global company formed in 2021 when Fiat Chrysler merged with Peugeot SA. The Agnelli family who cofounded Fiat S.p.A. in 1899 holds the largest block of stocks. Stellantis owns the Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Mopar, Opel, Peugeot, Ram and Vauxhall brands.
Construction of Lingotto started in 1916 and the building opened in 1923. The design by young architect Matte Trucco was unusual in that it had five floors, with raw materials going in at the ground floor, and cars built on an assembly line that went up through the building. Finished cars emerged at rooftop level, where there was a rooftop test track.
On a graphic in the hotel lobby, Le Corbusier is quoted “uno degli spettacoli piu impressionanti forniti dal mondo dell’industria” (one of the most impressive shows provided by the world of industry).
After the closing of the plant in 1982, the Italian architect – Renzo Piano transformed the factory into a multifunctional complex which reopened in 1989. Later the building was updated twice by him, adding a glazed bubble containing a meeting room in 1994 and an elevated art gallery in 2003.
The original Lingotto rooftop test track was such a spectacle that it was featured briefly in the getaway sequence in the film The Italian Job (1969) starring Michael Caine.
We could see the track which banks around the end of the building.
Unfortunately, on the day we visited, we could not walk outside as the track was closed.
A rooftop garden called La Pista 500 was created on a section of the rooftop test track.
The rooftop garden, which contains indigenous plants, is open to the public and has been dubbed an “e-track” since it will now only be used by electric vehicles. Apparently, the design of this rooftop garden was inspired by New York’s High Line.
The other addition, La Bolla, a glass dome added in 1994, is an exclusive meeting room hovering 40 meters from the ground.
While the track and garden were off limits, the art gallery – Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli , named after members of the founding family of FIAT, was opened. It is housed in Lo Scrigno, a 450 square-metre steel structure raised 34 meters off the test track, also designed by Renzo Piano.
While it is a small gallery, we particularly liked the selection of modern Italian futurists paintings that were on display.
Lanciers Italiens au Galop (1915) by Gino Severini >
Exhibiting this painting – Velocita Astratta (Abstract Speed, 1913) here is clever as the Lingotto car factory was built about 10 years after the painting was made by Giacomo Balla who is known for expressing movement and speed in his works.
The large factory spaces now also host FIAT’s offices, a shopping gallery, an exhibition center, our hotel (the NH Torino Lingotto Congress), a conference center with an auditorium, a multiplex cinema, and several departments of the Politecnico University of Torino.
The lobby and reception areas of our hotel retained the original high ceilings, huge windows showing off lush vegetation and generous interior spaces that reflect modern aspects of the architecture.
To get from the hotel reception to the guest room which is on the other side of the building, we walked through a tropical garden in a covered passageway.
Our room also has high ceilings and big windows, but it was populated only by a few pieces of furniture, too few in our opinion given the ample floor space.
A graphic on the wall shows a vintage 501 FIAT (23 horsepower, top speed 70 km/h) made at the factory, possibly on the same floor as the guestroom is, 100 years ago.
Another graphic tells the story of the Lingotto factory, and set it against a time line of 20th century furniture creations. The graphic invites guests to have fun identifying the furniture in the room.
We had in our room, Lampada Berenise (1985) by Paolo R-A Meda, Tolomeo desk lamp by Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina, a small Tulip table (1957) by Eero Saarinen and a Bertoia chair (1952). See photos above.
We wandered around the complex, visited the art gallery, and the shopping mall which was spacious by European standard. If we did not know the context of the building, we could believe that the mall is the United States.
To round off the car theme of this segment of the trip, we visited the National Automobile Museum (MAUTO) which is a 5-minutes walk from the hotel. See our next post about the museum.