Credits

project Giovanni Oggioni, Franco Fusari, Marina Gariboldi, Sergio Manzone, Giulia Sarti

location via Pastrengo 88, Moncalieri (Torino)

​type venue

date 1996 – 2003

photos Gianni Ferrero Merlino, Edoardo Mentegazzi

 

The Ex Fonderie Limone have deeply marked Moncalieri’s urban lay-out and social system: this pillar-structure, located in via Pastrengo 88 in the Borgo Mercato area, on the border with the municipality of Nichelino, has represented for over fifty years a real point of reference for many workers. The company’s main activities were the fusion of bronze, of aluminium and of castiron. The foundry experienced years of splendour but also moments of great adversity, that led to its permanent shutdown at the end of the seventies. Only at the beginning of the nineties was a wide-ranging project for functional and urban renewal prepared, with the objective to set up, in certain parts of the structure, activities of great urban importance. Over the years, the transformation of this part of Moncalieri hadn’t involved the area and also didn`t create any connection with it. Main goal of the transformation therefore was to re-connect the inner area of the factory to the urban network and give the area, which had remained alien to the city for a long time, back to its citizens.

Under the motto of Officina Teatrale, the site was to be transformed into a centre for theatrical activities, performances and culture, hosting the whole chain of theatrical production, research, experiment and representation. Another target was to offer spaces to young people building a centre of music production, but unfortunately this part of the project was never realised.Two additional elements of the plan were conceived in order to revitalize the area and to integrate it with the city.The first one was the construction of low buildings for residential use for teachers and students of the acting school alongside the south border; the second one was the insertion of a social centre consisting of workshops, placed in the former ‘dormitory’ building,near the entrance of the site.

The project, assigned to architects Maria Gariboldi, Sergio Manzone and Gianni Oggioni, was articulated in three phases of intervention. The first phase concerned the tear down of the not practicable parts and to built a theatre complex with foyer, laboratories, offices, rehearsal rooms, equipment rooms, and a drama school. The second phase concerned the completionof works of the new complex and the third phase concerned the completion of works of the area, an internal road network, green areas and the building of craft workshops, guesthouse and housing units. The new complex was given in management to the Fondazione Teatro Stabile di Torino, and was inaugurated in February 2005 with the theatrical performance of Woyzeck of Georg Büchner.

The concept of memory is expressed in remaining testimonies of diverse industrial typologies that marked the complex through time, and therefore, besides remembering the industrial era and the particular industry it onces hosted, it writes a small history of industrial factories. At the same time the project shows the topicality of these spaces, being very suitable to host contemporary cultural activities. The idea of the project was that no other traditional theatre could host contemporary and avant-garde activitities better than this venue thanks to his formal crudity without preconfigured decorations. The pedestrian paved area in front of the theatre hosts the galleria della memoria which is a remaining piece of the oldest part of the former industrialfactory. In the middle of a span of this gallery the chimney of the factory rises up, which is seen as the landmark and the symbol of the entire area.

 

Sources:

-www.teatrostabiletorino.it/en/fonderie-limone-moncalieri/

-Fonderie Limone Novant`anni tra industria e arte, Silvana Editoriale S.p.A., 2012

-Citta` di Moncalieri, Teatro Stabile di Torino (ed.), Limone fonderie teatrali.