Aspetti inediti della partecipazione della Società G. A. Porcheddu all'Esposizione di Torino 1911. Percorsi critici tra documenti testuali e immagini

In 1911 Rome and Turin celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the unity of Italy with two international expositions. Società Porcheddu Ing. G. A., concessionary firm of the Hennebique system for Northern Italy, played a pivotal role in these two events aimed to bring honour to national unity through arts and work. This work investigates some new aspects of the participation of the firm to the Turin event: its recognized fame, due to the realization of the great Ponte del Risorgimento in Rome and the huge Stadium in Turin, is strategically confirmed by the mediatic interest offered by the occasion. The firm took part to the Turin event on Industry and Work (April-November) both as an exhibitor, bestowed with the Grand Prize certificate, and as a firm directly involved in projecting and realizing a permanent pavilion, Palazzo del Giornale. This pavilion, defined “permanent” because it was not to be demolished, is the only part of the exhibition facilities made of reinforced concrete. It displays this building technology and, at the same time, is a forerunner (fifty years earlier) of the layout of a part of Valentino Park and can therefore be defined a typological prelude of the future Torino Esposizioni complex. This research, mainly carried out at the Porcheddu Archive, is based on previously unseen documentation: from calculation reports that can be attributed to the young engineer Danusso, describing in detail his static and structural choices, to graphic documents that connect structure and architecture in an ambiguous dialectics between structural innovation and neo-baroque decorative elements, to pictures showing both work in progress and the complete work. Thanks to these materials we can outline the intention of Società Porcheddu to comply with the requests of the executive committee through the compositional indications of the triumvirate made up of Fenoglio, Molli and Salvadori. A complex path suitable for in-depth analysis that offers more and more new study perspectives.