Free guided tours of the construction site of the Juvarrian facade of Palazzo Madama, 28 meters above sea level

The first free guided tours of the restoration and consolidation site of the Juvarra façade of Palazzo Madama and Giovanni Baratta’s monumental statues will kick off on Saturday, April 22, at 9:30 a.m., with the extraordinary contribution of the CRT Foundation, which has allocated 2.4 million euros for the entire operation. Thanks to the construction site elevator that is also accessible to people with disabilities, visitors will be guided by restorers along an evocative path on the scaffolding up to a height of 28 meters above the ground, at the terrace above the facade.

The balcony equipped for the ground movement of the four newly restored allegorical statues of “Good Government” - Justice, Liberality, Magnanimity and Abundance - will offer a privileged and unprecedented perspective of the city and the surrounding area as far as the Alpine crown, embracing a 360-degree view of Turin’s main architecture: the Royal Palace, the Chapel of the Shroud, the Royal Church of San Lorenzo, the Mole Antonelliana, Palazzo Carignano, Superga.

On the top of the scaffold appear in the foreground the upper parts of the two Roman towers of the decuman gate, remodeled in the Middle Ages. Some photographic images, placed here, show how the place looked in the 19th and early 20th century. A large-scale drawing reveals the complete plan prepared by Filippo Juvarra for the unfinished facade of Palazzo Madama. Visitors will be able to observe the work in progress to restore the marble decorations and the structural consolidation of the entablature, with the insertion of the steel structures, which are being assembled in the three “blind chambers” created by Juvarra during construction, inside the cornice.

At an intermediate level, behind the large tarpaulin covering the scaffolding, it will be possible to admire the large capitals of the columns that decorate the central body of the facade: here the phases of restoration of the columns will be visible, with the artisans stonemasons who are putting in place the marble plugs on the shafts of the columns and in the frieze of the architrave. The restorers will explain the procedures adopted to restore the deterioration of the marbles and “patch up” the injuries, war damage, and decay that had affected the cornices, sculptures, and ornaments. A small piece on the history of a monumental historical architecture that will reveal the secrets used in the ancient techniques for building a palace that has become a symbol of Turin in the world.

The visit will be complemented by an account by Professor Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa on the thousand-year history of Palazzo Madama: from Roman gate to medieval castle, from masterpiece of European Baroque to seat of the Senate, now the Civic Museum of Ancient Art with more than 70 thousand works of painting, sculpture and decorative arts from the Roman period to the 19th century.

“Citizens and tourists, starting with people with disabilities, will be able to experience the extraordinary restoration of Palazzo Madama in a participatory and inclusive way: an operation made possible by Fondazione CRT to revive the Great Beauty of a place that is a symbol of history, art, and culture that belongs to everyone,” said Fondazione CRT President Giovanni Quaglia.

“Opening visits also to people with disabilities is a step forward in creating a society for all,” explained Giovanni Ferrero, director of the Consulta per le Persone in difficoltà. “We believe that this approach by Fondazione CRT and Fondazione Torino Musei should become a stimulus and a mode of involvement shared by the entire cultural world, in line with the spirit that animates the Disability Agenda, as a model of participatory inclusion.”

“The construction site constitutes a challenge from a methodological and technical-operational point of view, due to the peculiarity of the materials used and the boldness of Juvarra,” commented Lisa Accurti, Soprintendente Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Metropolitan City of Turin. “In particular, the study of the structural system of anchoring the stone cladding to the rear masonry structures, the articulation of which has over the centuries produced problems of no small magnitude, proved to be of great fascination and extreme complexity. The study conducted to ’manage’, as part of the current consolidation, the previous interventions required special engineering skills, but it also allowed us to understand the ingenuity of the solutions adopted in the restorations between the 19th and 20th centuries, which in turn are worthy of protection as documents of the highest testimonial value of the advancement of building techniques applied to the restoration of ancient monuments.”

“The opening of the Palazzo Madama construction site to the public,” said Fondazione Torino Musei President Massimo Broccio, “is another step in the direction of fully sharing the building that has embodied Turin’s role in Italian and European history for two millennia. The discovery of new viewpoints, spaces and potentials will be a pleasant and interesting surprise for Turin residents as well. We are deeply grateful to the CRT Foundation for the important act of patronage that, together with the fundamental institutional role played by the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Metropolitan City of Turin, allowed the allocation of an additional fund, making it possible to complete the restoration of the entire facade.”

The restoration of the Juvarrian facade of Palazzo Madama, on a project entrusted to Studio Architetti Gritella & Associati, with the direction of works by architect Gianfranco Gritella, assisted for structural works by engineer Franco Galvagno, began in March 2022 and has reached about 50 percent progress.

The construction site is entering a significantly more challenging new phase, with the addition of new work determined by the need to also intervene on some structures inside the staircase that have revealed unforeseen structural issues. This element, together with the desire to use all available sums to improve some critical issues on parts of the facade not included in the first lot, lead to an estimate of the completion of the work on the central body in 2024.

The cleaning cycle of the entire facade, the disassembly and subsequent reassembly of the flakes and stone fragments, more than a hundred of them, in precarious structural stability, have been completed, and the plastering operations affecting an area of about 800 square meters are underway.

A team of restorers and specialized technicians is working on the restoration and integration of the marble tesserae on the different parts of the facade: about 180 pieces of different shapes and sizes, jointed and duly shaped on site, all obtained from salvaged blocks of the same material from the ancient quarries of Chianocco in the lower Susa Valley.

This scenario is accompanied by the need to initiate two new interventions. A greater complexity of work is planned for the restoration and rehabilitation of the capitals of the main columns, which, by removing the mortars applied in several layers over the centuries, have revealed the deep degradation of the sculptures, particularly the leaves and volutes, many of which are supported by iron brackets inserted deep into the marble and found to be completely corroded. Consolidation will take place through the insertion of stainless steel threaded rods and the use of carbon fiber adhesive tapes.

The structure constituting the stone lining of the three large pillars of the ground floor, alongside the three arches of the main entrance, also revealed more or less concentrated failures at the lintel of the three balconies of the main floor, cracks and spalling of the stone blocks now concealed beneath the twentieth-century cement mortar-based plasters and plaster. With the removal of these mortars will follow the work of redoing the plasters and consolidating the stone blocks of the main arches on the ground floor and the large corbels carved with heads of crowned lions: these operations will be carried out by means of stainless steel pivots attached to the bases of the main columns.

The interest of the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Metropolitan City of Turin, headed by architect Lisa Accurti, is to also attempt to solve the structural problems arising from the presence of the reinforced concrete slab, built in the years 1947-48 above the Juvarrian vault of the staircase. This structure, about 500 square meters in size, consists of a series of concrete beams supporting a sloping flat roof, which replaces an earlier 18th-century pitched roof made of tiles on wooden beams that was destroyed by bombing in 1943. In order to improve the structural issues of the work, while fulfilling earthquake-proofing regulations, it is planned to replace the existing attic with a steel truss structure that could also become viable for public use in the future. To this end, a final design has already been submitted, for which technical and economic feasibility assessments and the raising of the necessary funds are underway, assuming that the work can be implemented within the timeframe envisaged for the 2nd batch of works.

The current works, which will be joined shortly by the restoration work on the large glazed windows and doors that will start in May 2023 for a duration of nine months, will be flanked by the second batch of works, financed by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities through the Regional Secretariat for Piedmont, which concerns the restoration of the side wings of the palace and some ancillary works, the amount of which is about 1,800,000 euros.

Info visits
Saturdays, April 22, May 20, June 17, Sept. 16, Oct. 21, 2023
Hours: 9:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m.

Ph. Perottino

Free guided tours of the construction site of the Juvarrian facade of Palazzo Madama, 28 meters above sea level

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