Architecture : $b nineteenth and twentieth centuriesHitchcock, Henry-Russell
History
Architecture : $b nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell
Architecture, Modern -- 19th century; Architecture, Modern -- 20th century
The other principal square of this period, on the farther side of the
new quarter and at the outer end of the present-day Via Roma, is the
Piazza Carlo Felice. This was laid out by the engineer Lombardi and by
Frizzi in 1823, and has façades by Carlo Promis (1808-73) that also
extend on both sides of the square along the broad Corso Vittorio
Emmanuele II. Continuous arcades cross the street ends, as in the Piazza
Vittorio Veneto, and the balconies are syncopated. The fine big trees in
the square and along the Corso are a happy addition to the urban scene
quite uncharacteristic of the rest of Italy.
The inner end of the Piazza Carlo Felice is not curved but
semi-octagonal. Originally the outer end was open and defined only by
rows of trees; later, in 1866-8, the handsome Porta Nuova Railway
Station was built there by the engineer Alessandro Mazzuchetti (1824-94)
and the architect Carlo Ceppi (1829-1921). Now this terminates the long
central axis of the city which extends from the Royal Palace through the
Piazza Castello, the Piazza San Carlo, and down the Via Roma to the
Piazza Carlo Felice.
Turin has other monumental edifices of this period besides the Gran
Madre di Dio. There are, for example, two later churches in the new
quarter, San Massimo and the Sacramentine; the latter, by Alfonso Dupuy,
was built in 1846-50 from a design of 1843, with later portico by Ceppi;
the former in 1845-54 by Carlo Sada (1809-73). Both are domed, but less
Pantheon-like than the Gran Madre. They lack, unfortunately, the
elegance and delicacy of scale of the houses of the period in the
streets that surround them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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