Terrazza panoramica della Mole Antonelliana

The panoramic terrace crowns the Mole Antonelliana eighty-five metres above central Turin, with views across the city and the Alpine horizon.

Why it matters

The panoramic terrace crowns the building that is Turin's emblem, and no other vantage point in the city explains the place so efficiently. From the tempietto — the little temple of the crown, to use Alessandro Antonelli's own terminology, suspended 85 metres above the ground — the view takes in the rooftops of the eighteenth-century Savoy city, the green line of the River Po, the hills beyond, and the arc of the Alps closing the horizon. The panoramic terrace is integrated into the Mole's hollow interior and its National Cinema Museum, contrasting the dimmed exhibition spaces with the open daylight above.

What to notice

• The fully glazed panoramic lift occupies the enormous volume of the Mole's hall as a modern intervention within Antonelli's design.
• The 360-degree layout of the city from the top: the grid of the Roman centre, the Baroque axes, the Po and the bridges, and the hills of the Turin side, each legible from the crown.
• The Mole's own spire, seen close up from the terrace; the museum notes that it was rebuilt after a violent storm brought it down in 1953.
• Antonelli pushed masonry construction to exceptional height; the structure was later reinforced, and the spire was rebuilt after the 1953 storm.
• The contrast between the dimmed, cinema-themed spaces below and the open daylight of the terrace.

Context and history

The terrace belongs to the Mole Antonelliana, designed by Alessandro Antonelli from 1862 as a synagogue for Turin's Jewish community. Antonelli's design was repeatedly enlarged into an ever taller, more monumental structure, and the cost overruns led the Jewish community to sell the unfinished building to the City of Turin in 1878; construction was completed in 1889, and in 1906 the Mole reached its present height of 167 metres, at the time the tallest masonry building in Europe. The twentieth century brought structural reinforcement campaigns and, in 1953, the loss of the spire to a storm and its subsequent rebuilding. Between 1996 and 1999 the Mole was renovated to house the National Cinema Museum; its helical exhibition ramp, panoramic lift and crown terrace were integrated into the conversion. The terrace thus compresses the history of the city — synagogue project, civic symbol, engineering marvel, cinema temple — into a single vertical journey.