The Turin Cornice

A peculiar relationship developed in early modern Turin between the architectural cornice and the urban fabric. While it inevitably belongs to individual buildings, the cornice’s role is defined by its interaction with streets, crossroads, squares. Silhouetted against the sky, the cornice unfolds, leaping from building to building, turning corners, unifying facades of different design, connecting city blocks. IN this essay, we examine how Turin’s architectural cornice has become a standard feature of the city’s seventeenth and eighteenth century urban landscape.