About Turin
Turin is an ancient city, which was Italy's first capital, and is now a great industrial district. Each moment in history has left its mark on the city, creating a legacy of culture, architecture and monuments.
Now? Well, Turin is looking ahead now, more than ever, focused on becoming a meeting point for different cultures, and a reference point for development of new technologies and production sectors: a modern metropolis that will host the 2006 20th Winter Olympics.
Culture
Turin stands ever more for culture with a capital C, with art not only in its museums. The streets of the city are crammed with literary and artistic creations, even the walls now play their part. Turin has gained recognition in Italy and abroad as one of the liveliest cities that constantly expresses its intrinsic desire for beauty not only in a tradition embodied in its dance, theatre and design schools but also in its attention to talented young artists and its more experimental, modern attitude to culture. Turin is one of the European capitals of Contemporary Art.
A city that was the birthplace of Arte Povera, a city inspired by the exuberance of the Futurist movement and the creativity of Felice Casorati. Turin is thronged with private galleries, Foundations and permanent exhibitions. Without forgetting a suite of museums that ranges from the Castello di Rivoli museum of contemporary art to the Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Museo Egizio, Museo del Cinema, Museo dell'Automobile, Sandretto re Rebaudengo foundation, Palazzo Bricherasio and museum of the Holy Shroud naming only the mains.
Architecture
Turin has a Baroque face, an Art Nouveau face and a Liberty face, it has its Royal Residences, its bridges and 18km of arcades lining the city centre, but there are innovative installations too, set on creating a brand new look.
A tour of 20th-century and contemporary Turin combines a history lesson with an introduction to some avant-garde infrastructures and works of art.
Nature
Green is the dominant colour of Turin in satellite shots. Over 17 million square metres of pure nature: 18 square metres of green per resident, 300,000 flowers grown each year in public gardens, as well as 400 kilometres of tree-lined avenues with over 60,000 plants, 100,000 trees in public gardens and 70 kilometres of parks along the banks of 4 rivers: a heritage that quadruplicated in the last 30 years.
Nature has been generous with Turin: the lovely Chieri and Monferrato hills to the south; to the north, the breathtaking skyline of the Alps, and a decisive factor for choosing Turin as host for the 20th Winter Olympics.
Design and innovationTurin is a city where style is a fact of life. But it also design. Take Bertone, Giugiaro and Pininfarina, designers whose talent created beautiful cars. Take the style generated by young designers from the PolytechnicSchool and IED – the European Design Institute. Take over 100 industrial design businesses. Top architects like Carlo Mollino, Annibale Rigotti and Andrea Bruno, have ensured the survival of the design-object contamination tradition at contributed to Turin becoming the first Italian city asked to organize the World Architects Congress, in 2008
Taste
Torinese cuisine is a maze of delicious flavour and wonderful delicacies. Special courses, truffles, charcuterie. Then there are meats, cheeses, pastries, chocolate and nougat. Served with some of Italy's finest wines offering an extensive selection and excellent quality. This marvellous fare is the fruit of fertile terrain and a great tradition, which you can now sample in upmarket restaurants, but equally in the "piole" or historic taverns, still dense with the aromas and scents of old Turin.
Historic cafes“What news from the cafés today?” King Vittorio Emanuele II would often ask his counsellors when he wanted the low-down on the political situation. If we’re going to be honest, a chapter of Italian history was actually written in Turin cafés. Cavour was a patron of Caffè Fiorio, but Massimo D’Azeglio, Giolitti and Einaudi preferred Baratti&Milano. De Gasperi used to wind down at Caffè Torino. Alexandre Dumas was a habitué of Bicerin (the “snifter”), Guido Gozzano liked the Art Nouveau rooms in Mulassano, but Platti was Cesare Pavese’s favourite.
Things haven’t changed much and the historic cafés are the heart and soul of Turin tradition and culture: a safe bet for tasting some special subalpine pastries in oh-so-chic style.
University and Science in Turin
University of Turin
One of the oldest Universities in Italy, established in 1404, and attended by 65,000 students. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1506) and two recent Nobel Laureates, Renato Dulbecco and Rita Levi Montalcini, graduated here.
Polytechnic of Turin
Formerly University School of Engineers, it became a Polytechnic in 1906, first of the current 3 Italian Polytechnics, leader in Engineering and Architectural research, attended by about 25,000 students.
The Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica
The Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (I.N.RI.M.) is the national public body with the task of carrying out and promoting scientific research in metrology. INRIM carries out studies and researches on the realization of primary standards for the basic and derived units of the International System of units (SI), assures the maintenance of such standards, their international comparison and in general provides measurements traceability to the SI.
