Lingotto (Fiat factory), Turin

Most factories hide their logic inside; Lingotto wears it on the outside. Fiat built it in the south of Turin between 1916 and 1923 to designs by Giacomo Mattè-Trucco, and the idea was as simple as it was audacious. Production ran upwards through a long five-storey block of reinforced concrete: raw materials came in at ground level, cars took shape floor by floor, and finished vehicles emerged on the roof, where they were driven straight onto a test track. When it opened it was the largest car factory in the world, and Le Corbusier called it one of the most impressive sights in industry.

The rooftop track is what everyone comes to see. It runs for about a kilometre and a half around the top of the building, a racing circuit laid out on a factory roof so that cars could be tested high above the city. Reaching it are the great helical ramps at either end of the building, spiralling concrete roads that let vehicles climb and descend between floors, and whose sculptural sweep has fascinated architects ever since. Some eighty Fiat models were made here, among them the little Topolino of 1936. The roof also gave cinema one of its most famous chase scenes: the getaway in The Italian Job (1969) runs across the rooftop track.

By the late 1970s the vertical factory was obsolete, and production ended in 1982. Renzo Piano won the competition to convert it, and over the following years the long block was turned into a new piece of the city, with a concert hall, convention centre, shops, a hotel and university departments, while the frame and the track were kept. On the roof Piano placed the Scrigno, the "treasure chest" that houses the Pinacoteca Agnelli with paintings from the collection of Giovanni and Marella Agnelli. Since 2022 the track itself has been open as La Pista 500, a roof garden of more than 40,000 plants with contemporary art installations along the old racing line.

Getting there

Lingotto stands on Via Nizza in the Nizza Millefonti district of southern Turin. Lingotto station on metro line 1 is on Via Nizza, and Torino Lingotto railway station is nearby. Turin Airport (TRN) is about 19 km away.