Via degli Artisti is located in the former borgo del Fumo (“Smoke District”), a working class area of the town designed by the famous architect Antonelli, which has become part of the city center because it is very close to Piazza Vittorio and the Mole Antonelliana.
Antonelli left his distinctive mark all over this district along the bank of the Po river.
His touch is visible in the elegant palaces designed for the middle-class, but also in the most daring shapes of experimental constructions like the famous fetta di polenta (“slice of polenta”) – a narrow “Turin-yellow” building that remains, quite unexplicably, standing to this day, and that is home to a contemporary art gallery. Art and design have become the new soul of this ancient district, where old workshops and modern art studios alternate in a ferment of creativity.
Today this area is also a sort of “bridge” reaching out from the old University building to the futuristic Einaudi Campus of the University of Turin, the brand new complex designed by Foster&Partners near the old gasometer.
Via della Rocca runs well into the heart of the city. It is the most beautiful street leading to piazza Vittorio, home to historical palaces and fascinating architecture. The building where our B&B is located is among the oldest, because it is one of the very few to have survived the bombings of the Second World War.
The piazza Vittorio square is vast – it covers 40,000 square meters – and it is enclosed by almost 1 km of porticoes. It was almost entirely rebuilt in what Cesare Brandi would call “a falsification of history” … A definition that does not apply to our building, which is a genuine original – made even more charming by the signs of time passing!
Piazza Vittorio is the heart of Turin: from here you can leave on any adventure, in any weather: because from the “Due” you can walk around Turin without an umbrella and not get wet even when it pours – thanks to the arcades!