Lingotto building on the Via Nizza, which once was a huge car factory, constructed by Fiat. Built from 1916 and opened in 1923, the design (by young architect Mattè Trucco) was unusual in that it had five floors, with raw materials going in at the ground floor, and cars built on a line that went up through the building. Finished cars emerged at rooftop level, where there was a rooftop test track. It was the largest car factory in the world at that time. For its time, the Lingotto building was avante-garde, influential and impressive—Le Corbusier called it "one of the most impressive sights in industry", and "a guideline for town planning". 80 different models of car were produced there in its lifetime, including the famous Fiat Topolino of 1936.
4 comments:
awesome!
This is awsome-Iwent there a number of years back...they race bycivls on the roof now.
J-
COC is good and good for you!
Comments from a engineering friend that's worked on + off in Saudi over the last 20-odd years..."The road may not have been "designed" in-so-much as it may have been an old trade route that was more-or-less simply paved over (with a few spans added to adjust the level).
This is not uncommon in the middle-east. In Saudi, they have the Kurshania Highway (which isn't really a "highway" by anybody's standards). Although Kurshania Hwy. is relatively straight, more-or-less following the eastern coast, and black-topped, it is said to be over 1,500 years old. Sections of it look older than that (despite the black-top) and there are always long stretches over which traffic is held up for road repairs.
The possibility that the road was once an ancient trade-route is suggested by a large detour (toward the upper, right-hand corner in the first photo) which appears to do little more than provide a scenic distraction. It seems to me that a competent, modern highway engineer could easily have by-passed such a detour by leveling an apparently solid stretch of terrain between two legs of the road. When caravans first started carving out thoroughfares, they didn't build roads, but rather found ways to circumvent obstacles."
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