Ex Chiesa di Santa Chiara (Officina Santachiara)

Cuneo has found a new use for one of its finest baroque churches. Santa Chiara, deconsecrated and closed for years, reopened in June 2024 as Officina Santachiara, a public cultural workshop where theatre, music and dance now sound under the same vaults that once held the Poor Clares.

Why it matters

The former church of Santa Chiara, built in 1714, is counted among the most significant baroque buildings of Cuneo, and its return to public use after long years of closure is one of the most consequential heritage projects the city has undertaken recently. Rather than becoming an empty monument, the building was reimagined as a working cultural space: since June 2024 it has operated as Officina Santachiara, a hub for performance and community arts run with the theatre company Dispari Teatro. The baroque interior is now experienced as a cultural venue, with restoration work legible in the fabric around it.

What to notice

• The baroque body of the church of 1714: the volume and light of a conventual

church built for an enclosed community, now emptied for performance use.

• The signs of the refit: staging, seating and technical equipment installed

inside a former nave, showing how a sacred space converts to a civic one.

• The contrast with Cuneo's active baroque churches, which makes Santa Chiara a case study in the reuse of religious heritage.
• The programme spans theatre, music, dance and visual arts, showing how the building's former religious spaces have acquired a new cultural role.

Context and history

The church and convent of Santa Chiara served the Poor Clares, the enclosed Franciscan order founded by Clare of Assisi, whose houses occupied quiet corners of Piedmontese towns. The present church dates to 1714, within Cuneo's great baroque building season that also produced the cathedral and Sant'Ambrogio. With the end of the religious community the building passed out of worship, was deconsecrated, and entered the long cycle of disuse and restoration that affects so many conventual complexes. Its recovery was carried forward by the municipality as part of its cultural strategy: after years of restoration and refitting, the former church officially reopened in June 2024 as Officina Santachiara. The venue grows out of Officina Residenza Teatrale, the project that the company Dispari Teatro, formerly known as Compagnia Il Melarancio, has run since 2003, using theatre as a tool of education and community life. The institutional heritage authority marked the reopening by opening the church to the public during the 2024 European Heritage Days, presenting the building's new theatrical vocation.