Turin wasn't just a city of palaces and squares. For a long time, it also had smokestacks, assembly lines and blast furnaces: smoke, noise and a great deal of activity involving iron and cars. It was Italy's Detroit. Not everything from that era has survived, but what remains has often found a new purpose. Where metal was once worked, there are now parks and open spaces; where locomotives were repaired, you can listen to electronic music and encounter contemporary art.
This route brings together red bricks, industrial sheds, walkways, ramps and a rooftop test track. You don't need to be an industrial archaeology enthusiast to enjoy it: you just need to be curious about what happens when a city reuses its spaces instead of erasing them.
We especially recommend it to those of you who have already walked around the historic centre and would like to discover another side of Turin. It's a slightly different itinerary from the others: here, the buildings, materials and new uses tell the story of change.
Before setting out, check the visiting arrangements for the various sites.
On foot Walking: 16.8 km, 4 h 12 min
-
Nuvola LavazzaNuvola Lavazza
Nuvola Lavazza and the Suspended Basilica: A futuristic headquarters floating above an old power station. But the real secret lies beneath your feet: during excavation work, the workers found something that brought construction to a halt for years. In the PDF, we'll show you how twenty-first-century design managed to blend with a fifth-century early Christian treasure.
-
Docks DoraDocks Dora
Docks Dora: Welcome to Turin's Brooklyn. A complex of red-brick customs warehouses dating from 1912 that now houses the city's underground spirit, alongside a former metal fittings factory transformed into a temple of light and contemporary art.
-
Museo Ettore FicoMuseo Ettore Fico
The Museo Ettore Fico (MEF): A former factory producing metal fittings, where natural light floods the industrial spaces and interacts with the contemporary art exhibitions.
-
Parco DoraParco Dora
Parco Dora: The ultimate monument to urban regeneration in Turin. You'll walk among the colossal red pillars of the former Fiat and Michelin steelworks, now transformed into an open-air post-industrial cathedral.
-
OGROGR Torino
Entering the OGR Torino, the size of the spaces and the brick structures still tell of their first purpose. The complex was built at the end of the 19th century for the maintenance and repair of trains. Once the railway activity ended, it was recovered and reopened in 2017, becoming a venue for contemporary culture and innovation, with exhibitions, installations, concerts and talks.
Read more
What makes this history concrete has stayed on the floor: in some spaces you can still see the original tracks on which the locomotives came in. There is no need to imagine from scratch what that work was like, because a trace has remained there, in the middle of halls that have changed function. It is one of the stops where industrial Turin and contemporary Turin meet most clearly.
Even without a ticket there are permanent works to see. In the Corte Est you will find Procession of Reparationists, the metal figures made by William Kentridge in 2017; at the entrance of OGR Cult there is Track, the large mural painting by Arturo Herrera. These works are free during the opening hours of the spaces; temporary exhibitions and events may instead require a ticket or a booking.
-
Fondazione Sandretto Re RebaudengoFondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
The Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo: An international temple of avant-garde art established where the manufacturing workshops of Borgo San Paolo once stood.
-
Lingotto, the rooftop trackThe Lingotto
Il Lingotto and La Pista 500: The legendary car factory with its spiral ramps and famous rooftop test track, now transformed by Renzo Piano into the highest rooftop garden in Europe.
-
Museo dell'automobileMuseo dell'automobile
MAUTO (Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile): A spectacular multimedia account of how design and the automobile have reshaped Italian society.
This kind of itinerary works well if you have a convenient base from which to explore different parts of the city. Turin is not difficult to get around, but the distances between neighbourhoods make it useful to have somewhere you can easily return to after a day of exploring.
For those arriving by car, being able to leave it in a private parking area and then move around the different parts of Turin makes the experience much easier, especially when visiting areas such as Parco Dora, which lie outside the historic centre.
Industrial Turin is not the Turin everyone expects. It is a city that continually reinvents itself. This itinerary is the most direct way to see that for yourselves.
Would you like to avoid wasting precious hours on public transport or walking around trying to work out how to connect the northern part of the city with Lingotto? We have created a meticulously detailed PDF logistics guide exclusively for our guests. Inside, you will find the exact geographical order of the stops, optimised for journey times, the specific public transport routes to catch near our B&B, the best times to avoid queues at museums and insider addresses for a themed aperitivo or dinner in a former Vermouth factory or among industrial chimneys.
Would you like to receive the complete guide? Book your stay directly on our official website at the guaranteed best price and immediately receive the PDF “Torino Industriale e Rigenerata” to plan your trip like a true Turin local.
By staying with us, you have an ideal starting point for exploring the bold character of Industrial Turin. After a peaceful night and a homemade breakfast, you can wander among steel cathedrals, old railway tracks transformed into art and the legendary Lingotto test track, experiencing the city as a guest at the heart of Turin’s dynamism and future
The route
The map loads after consent to third-party content (OpenStreetMap).
These are the essential stops, but there is much more
When you book your stay with us you receive the complete step-by-step itinerary, a practical box with directions to get there and back, tips on what to see and a final treat to round off the themed day.