Palazzo Gualino
| Palazzo Gualino | |
|---|---|
 Location in Turin
|
|
| General information | |
| Type | Office building |
| Architectural style | Rationalist |
| Address | Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 8 |
| Town or city | Turin |
| Country | Italy |
| Coordinates | 45°03′34″N 7°41′21″E / 45.059332°N 7.689137°ECoordinates: 45°03′34″N 7°41′21″E / 45.059332°N 7.689137°E |
| Construction started | 1928 |
| Completed | 1930 |
| Owner | Riccardo Gualino |
| Technical details | |
| Material | Concrete |
| Size | 7,574 square metres (81,530 sq ft) floor area |
| Floor count | 7 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Gino Levi-Montalcini, Giuseppe Pagano |
The Palazzo Gualino is an office building in Turin, Italy built in 1928–30 for the entrepreneur Riccardo Gualino by the architects Gino Levi-Montalcini and Giuseppe Pagano. It is an important example of early Italian rationalist architecture. The building was used for offices first by Gualino, then by Fiat and finally by the city of Turin, who sold it to a real estate developer in 2012. A project to convert the office building into high-end apartments was begun in 2012, but was abandoned in 2015.
The Palazzo Gualino was built for the financier and art patron Riccardo Gualino, who saw the rationalist work of the architect Giuseppe Pagano (1896–1945) in an exhibition in 1928. He commissioned Pagano to build his company's headquarters in Turin on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The office building for the Gualino enterprises was built on land formerly occupied by the Villa Gallenga. Part of the earlier building remains as a service structure. The design was based on formal simplification and careful attention to functional and technical needs.
Pagano and Gino Levi-Montalcini (1902–74) built the Palazzo Gualino in 1928–29, with a flat roof rather than the sloped tile roof typical of other buildings in the city. In other ways the Rationalist design carefully combined modern and traditional features. The building has a symmetrical facade with seven floors on the main front on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, and five floors on the Via della Rocca. The identical low-stacked floors and the unorthodox but functionally rational horizontal windows convey a sense of efficiency rather than power.
The design covered all aspects of the building's intended use, including the layout, decoration, furniture and fixtures. The structure is of concrete, with light yellow and green plaster on the facades. Gualino's former offices on the top floor open onto a veranda that looks over the Parco del Valentino. Other innovations included the internal layout, the use of new industrial materials and the design of all the furnishings.
Magazines and newspapers hailed the building as the symbol of a new direction in architecture, an expression of progress and an example of new ways of organizing offices and management activities. The Palazzo Gualino is considered to be a major statement of the emerging rationalist culture in Italy. The Turin Society of Engineers and Architects recognized the building in 1984 as important both historically and for its artistic value as one of the first buildings of Italian Rationalism, completely preserved in its interior and finish.
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