Traditional crafts
For most people Piedmont, particularly Turin, is synonymous with the automobile industry; the city is known to be the location for factories producing car bodies, motors, wheels etc. But for thousands of years, artisans and craftsmen in this region have practised ancient trades, crafts that live on even in this present age of automation. Fashioning gold and gems into jewellery in Vallenza Po, creating furniture inlaid with precious woods in Saluzzo, crafting beautiful ceramics in Mondovì: our artisans are renowned for their skill throughout the world. Piedmont has, in fact, chosen to invest in this sector and to set up a series of “botteghe scuole” (teaching workshops) where master craftsmen can pass on their valuable skills to another generation, thus ensuring that an important part of the Piedmontese identity survives into the future. The most prestigious and precious crafts are awarded the Region’s certificate of “Eccellenza Artigiana” (Excellence in Craftsmanship), a guarantee of the quality and uniqueness of the products.
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Places
Villa Taranto Botanical Gardens
Villa Taranto and its gardens, which look out over Lago Maggiore, have a vast botanical trove that includes about 1,000 plants, which until today had never been cultivated in Italy, and about 20,000 varieties and species of particular botanical importance.
Castello di Mazzè
In the ancient underground parts of the medieval castle is the Museo della Tortura (Museum of Torture): tools and methods from the Holy Inquisition. The building is surrounded by a large park with a scenic view looking out over the Canavese.
Palaisozaki
It is the new Torino Olympic Palasport (Sports Arena) designed by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki for the Winter Olympics in Torino 2006. A multi-functional space, versatile and flexible which, thanks to the mobility of its platform, can turn from an ice rink into a concert, show, or convention venue.
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People
Roberto Faenza
“With its ancient and distressing twilight vice, Torino is the abstract, metaphysical space, the beautiful stranger, aloof and a bit mysterious that I have chosen to bring to the screen for Giorni dell’abbandono based on Elena Ferrante’s novel with the same title.”
Alain Elkann
“Torino remains a beautiful city, but not only that, it is also a serious city in which one can work well. One feels protected…Then, in those hills on certain winter days when the sky is blue and the air is clean, it’s like being in Kathmandu”.
Manhattan Transfer
"Torino has a unique allure: aristocratic, elegant. We enjoyed the museums, the parks and the people are warm and passionate. And also the cafés and fantastic restaurants where you eat in the Piemonte style: truffles, Barolo, Arneis were, for us, an absolutely unforgettable delicacy."
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