Sunday, March 1, 2020

CDP March Theme : Municipal Building

Palazzo Civico, current name of the ancient Palazzo di Città, is the seat of the town hall of the city of Turin. It overlooks the square which takes its name from its original name and which, before the last eighteenth-century settlement, was known by the name of Piazza delle Erbe.



A slab with the design of the symbol of Turin, a bull is embbed in the paviment at the entrance to the piazza

The current municipal building was designed by the architect Francesco Lanfranchi (1663), following the baroque designs of Emanuele Tesauro, right on the site of the previous municipal building, with a medieval layout. In 1659, Lanfranchi was commissioned to design and build a new headquarters for the city authority, right on the square then called "delle Erbe" which, a century later, Benedetto Alfieri transformed into the current Piazza Palazzo di Città. In the middle of that year, the first stone was laid by the archbishop of Turin, Giulio Cesare Bergera, in the presence of Duke Carlo Emanuele II and his mother, Madame Reale Cristina of France and in 1663 the works were finished.


Compared to today, the building was more narrow, without the elevation where the clock is displayed, and with a large coat of arms of the Savoy-Orléans, flanked by bronze lions, works that were destroyed by the Jacobins in 1799.

 
In the following century the palace was extensively remodeled by Benedetto Alfieri, who added the two wings, overlooking Via Garibaldi and Via Corte d'Appello, so that the small square behind it, called "del Butirro" was incorporated as a courtyard.  


Further modifications were made by the architects Francesco Valeriano Dellala of Beinasco, Luigi Barberis and Filippo Castelli. 

(Quote  from https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Civico_(Torino))

Location : Palazzo Di Città 

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7 comments:

Bob Crowe said...

Are the lights (I assume they are lights) a permanent feature of the piazza? It must be magical at night. You won't see a similar scene in this country.

Jim said...

Fantastic.

Klara said...

so distinguished.

Tanya Breese said...

I was wondering the same!

Tanya Breese said...

Wow.... amazing!! So beautiful!

Susan said...

Exquisite.

William Kendall said...

Beautiful!