At the Gallerie d'Italia in Turin, an urban forest available to all where they can find well-being

An urban forest in the inner courtyard of the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin’s Piazza San Carlo: this is Urban Woods, a project shared with Aboca, a leading benefit company in the field of natural and biodegradable therapeutic health products, and the International Book Fair, of which Intesa Sanpaolo has been a partner for many years.

Urban Woods welcomes twelve imposing trees, up to six meters tall and of different species - from olive, to birch, to holm oak, to eucalyptus - made available to visitors and anyone who feels the need to find, in the center of the city, a green oasis that brings together art, health and nature. Taking shape here, interpreted by a concrete and healthy environment to live in, are the reflections around which the photographic works dedicated to the climate crisis, the defense of the planet and the relationship with nature have been created in recent months, consistent with the strong identity as a current museum that speaks effectively, thanks to the evidence of the images, about the present time and the issues humanity is facing.

Two years after the opening of the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, the layout of the garden brings to fruition the idea of the museum space as it was conceived since 2020 in architect Michele De Lucchi’s initial design, where the dimness of the underground floors, which invites meditation on the photographs on display and the challenges of contemporaneity, is accompanied by the brightness of the courtyard: one of the elements of the museographic project included “the staging of outdoor spaces, thanks to the transformation of the courtyard into a passageway that between two green wings establishes a public pedestrian connection between Piazza San Carlo and Via XX Settembre.” The wooden arcade, on one side of the quadrilateral of the courtyard, is now joined by an airy environment inhabited by large plants, intended to be a small but significant contribution to the difficult historical moment of the Italian landscape in which forests suffer the siege of drought, insects, fires, pollution and land consumption.

The new green area in Gallerie d’Italia is intended to be new evidence of Intesa Sanpaolo ’s strategic direction toward a commitment to environmental sustainability. A commitment recounted, from May 2022, in Paolo Pellegrin’s exhibition La fragile meraviglia, in Luca Locatelli’s stories of circular economy, in the photos dedicated to water by the Cesura collective, and in Cristina Mittermeier’s spectacular images of the oceans: a narrative that will continue, from October 2024, with Mitch Epstein’s American Nature, the next photographic project that, with the urban forest, will build evocative dialogues.

Photo by Giuliano Berti.

At the Gallerie d'Italia in Turin, an urban forest available to all where they can find well-being

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