Torino 1995-2006: urban or large "bag"?
Loading ... Torino from the early decades of the twentieth century becomes the capital of big business on the basis of a formidable concentration of scientific knowledge, experience technology, availability of capital, a strong government role. The City put under public control the emerging hydroelectric industry, municipal transport, realizes the aqueduct, lighting and undertake in education, care and housing.
A distance of about a century the administration of Mayor Sergio Chiamparino, in the silence of the press, the absconding of intellectuals, is in danger of dispersing this heritage of public works, but also social, civil and ethical. The process of privatization of services and urban transformation under way is setting up as the biggest "bag" City never happened, the days of Mussolini today [1].
How could this happen in the town of Antonio Gramsci, of Piero Gobetti, of Cesare Pavese, of Italo Calvino, to Norberto Bobbio, of Galante Garrone ...?
I would be left to others l 
a political explanation of these events, although the idea would have some leads and the management of social conflict of the eighties, when the direction of PCI and Fiat agreed to close the struggle of 35 days and start the restructuring plans of the great factory ... will try instead to stay on the ground that I compete: that of architectural history and territory.
The "crisis" of FIAT triggers processes of social transformation and not just urban. In less than twenty years, the factory reduces its employees, concentrated in large urban factories, about one-tenth from over
Faced with a scenario like this, the choice of Valentino Castellani (center left) is to accept the processes of industrialization and to seek to accelerate the shift towards the service sector of the city. Main instrument is the drafting of a new Master Plan (the force was approved in 1959) entrusted to the study of famous architects in Milan Vittorio Gregotti and Augusto Cagnardi.
In 1995 the new plan is approved and active. Cornerstone of the plan is the rediscovery of an old issue, already present in the debates of the fifties: the strengthening of the north - south of the city through the creation of a main road. The so-called "Spina" is achieved with the coverage of the railroad and allow you to connect a number of industrial sites, called it "Spine: 1, 2, 3,
The basic plan is implemented but another number: 0.7. This is the percentage of area covered by residency, allowed for each square meter of land ownership. It 'a very high index which, combined with scarce land for services and green and weak public in these areas, allows the creation of extraordinary residential volume on those who once were the industrial areas. 
Despite this incredible gift to the owners of the areas, the process of transformation part slowly: the same manufacturers have some doubts on the viability of these interventions, in a city in severe crisis. We think the new administration of Chiamparino and the winning candidate to host the Winter Olympics in 2006 to start the process with force.
While the city is shocked by the Olympic sites, whole urban areas were razed to the ground without any attention to aspects of conservation or sustainable transformation of the testimonies of the past industrial Materferro, Nebiolo, Westinghouse, Teksid, Officine Railway, Big steel, Michelin, Savigliano, Engineering Motors, Venchi Unica, are virtually erased. Despite some voices of dissent, and City Superintendent authorize the destruction proposing some of the bond, far from a modern conception of protection, limited to certain emergencies, taken out of context: it keeps a stack here, there a cooling tower, there a facade or two spans of structures, with the result that historical work and technical survive as archaeological remains almost incomprehensible, in totally new urban fabric, without any quality urban planning and architecture. The most ironic is the survival of a chimney, turned into a kind of minaret in the new Church of the Holy Face the architect Mario Botta in Spina 3! 
New construction of Spine, mainly for residence, are as new parts of the city, completely indifferent to the surrounding area, with shapes, materials and characters and repetitive construction of poor quality. Spina 1 on the houses have deep loggias that prevent light from entering the housing, a Spina 2 volumes are totally out of scale and urban recreated entirely trivial. A Spina 3 immense tower blocks and once again the idea of the dormitory area, devoid of any social service, which is not the inevitable big shopping center. 
Few are the public for green schools, kindergartens, community centers. The most important project, the new park on the banks of Dora, with the scrapping of the coverage in cement, is postponed, as well as the completion of the project "Turin city of water", the construction of the new library and auditorium, the recovery of OGR The reconstruction of blocks away Artom, after the spectacular demolition of some derelict buildings.
In the meantime, public funds are committed for the construction of infrastructure works and Olympic. The watchword is sbandierata: apply the positive experiences like that of Barcelona, flying as urban development and social city. The results are very far from expectations: the city does not grasp the opportunity to recover and develop some large containers survivors of past celebrations, such as plants Italy'61: The Labor of Nervi continues to remain unused, the Palavela is transformed with the improper introduction in its vaults hall of Game Aulenti, the exhibition halls of the regions are restored without respect for their architectural quality and then returned to private management that prevents public access to a beautiful piece of greenery on the shore of Po. Torino Esposizioni continues to be under used, despite proposals to make it a museum. 
While the deficit Olympic Committee is written off by public budget (with consequent cuts in social spending), the city remains a legacy of works hard to manage: the Olympic village and the markets covered in via Giordano Bruno, the Palavela, the PalaIsozaki, l 'Oval are, as expected, difficult to use facilities, with running costs exorbitant. Similar fate touches to the works carried out at the Olympic Alpine valleys which, in addition to having produced no lasting repercussions on local economies, have strong environmental impacts and remain essentially unused. Among the few positive aspects: the reuse of some of the athletes village for university residences of which the city has serious shortcomings history. 
If it is true that improved the appearance of some central areas with retraining and pedestrianized public spaces, the fact remains that this was conducted at the expense of areas in the suburbs and especially without addressing the problem of enhancement of public transport. It continued a policy of encouraging private mobility, with the construction of parking spaces in the center, including, contestatissimo bad results for the architectural, Piazzale Valdo Fusi. Construction of the subway, finally launched during the Olympics, after a debate that lasted a century, is another opportunity seized only in part, is devoid of adequate modal interchange stations and is not compatible with the existing transport network on iron , So the stretch to Lingotto is built underground, when we could use the existing railway auctions surface. The connections with the airport are still inadequate, despite the existence of a question on iron dating back to World Cup, never connected to the main stations. The ring road is now clogged and we talk about building the fourth lane, with further waste of the few survivors still farmland. 
The result, in addition to continuing traffic congestion in a city with a large scroll course, is the now chronic slippage of the parameters of air quality, compared to the regulations permitted.
Over the last decade in Turin about 35 million square meters of land have changed intended use or have been objects of new buildings, mostly intended for residence (about 62% of operations). These are impressive figures, around 40% of land occupied by homes. But about 8,000 families are waiting for housing people.
For the future we continue to propose policies for large events and "great works" as the driving force of development. After the "success" of the Olympics now aims to further large celebrations (2008: International Congress architects, 2011: one hundred and fifty years of Italy ...)
We are advancing projects of reuse areas of the shaft front rail to Porta Nuova and the same station, up for sale. It proposes the construction of skyscrapers like those in the region, the new headquarters of Banca Intesa San Paolo, the SAI (which would be involved as investors debated the manufacturer Salvatore Ligresti) with the prospect of further congestion of the city center. It talks of a new city health, imposing real estate transaction that will produce the urbanization of the course Marche, the only quadrant of the city still green.
The historic change of cities currently under way, which could act as a laboratory of international concern on the issues of de-industrialization, sustainability of the recovery building, the architectural quality, is playing instead of speculation processes typical of the thirties, fifties and sixties, with the difference that was then in the presence of expansionary economic cycles and an increase in population, now non-existent. 
The public support for land and housing production, not related to the possibility of access to housing by low income, indifferent to issues of exploitation of environmental resources, redistribution of resources, quality of life, is a mere flight dynamics speculative financial market, as demonstrated by the recent crisis in American real estate funds, threatens to turn into a collapse.
E 'must put an end to this "sack" of the city to do so must rebuild a real debate, giving voice to workers, rediscovering the values of class solidarity, commitment and social calendar. Only then perhaps can start a new era of development for Torino.
Professor of History of Contemporary at the Politecnico di Torino
[1] I used this phrase in an article on these topics currently being published on "Charter".
[2] For this and other data cited cf. Committee Giorgio Rota, no network 2007. Eighth annual report on Turin, Turin 2007 and previous editions of the report.
[3) This phenomenon seems that nobody has ever done a study, just remember that the mid-nineties the percentage of deaths, usually around 10 percent, triples. Source: City of Turin, Statistics Service.
I share the analysis. We need to take in hand the town planning from the bottom. Who is interested in can now read our three-year experience of volunteer citizens committee to draft 3 on the site http://www.comitatodoraspina3.it
December 2, 2007 at 11:52 a.m. amEzio Boer