Fenoglio per l'industria

Pietro Fenoglio (1865-1927), the dominant figure of the Turin Liberty, during his professional activity often faced with the design of industrial buildings, destined for both production and residence: factories, workers’ houses and the Leumann village. There are the typical problems of the industrial patrimony, but not only: in fact, if the productive buildings, have a fast deterioration due to the rapid obsolescence and the meager financing for the maintenance, and live, therefore, a short active existence, the Fenoglio buildings for industry have an additional formal deficit. As is well known, Pietro Fenoglio asserts himself on the international scene as architect of the Liberty and most of his most famous projects are urban residences commissioned by a rich and refined bourgeoisie (such as Villa Scott or Villa La Fleur). However, during his career, he was forced to express himself on several occasions with a lower architectural vocabulary because of the functional reasons and the economic principles of the industrial yards. Deepening this “theme, studying the individual projects, putting these objects of industrial archaeology in a system and placing them in relationship with Turin at the end of the 19th century, dynamic and productive, can reveal new aspects of a still partly obscure protagonist of the Italian architectural scene.