Torino : Italy
The town currently has a large number of rail and road work sites. Although this activity has increased as a result of the 2006 Winter Olympics, part of it had been planned for a long time. Some of the work sites deal with general improvements to car traffic, like underpasses and flyovers. Two projects are of major impact and will change the shape of the town radically. One is the ‘Spina’ (‘spine’) which includes the doubling of a major railroad crossing the town; the railroad previously run in a trench, which will now be covered by a major boulevard; the town rail station on this line will become the main station of Turin (‘Porta Susa’). The other major project is the construction of a metropolitan underground line; the first phase of this project will finish in time for the Olympic Games and will link the nearby town of Collegno with the ‘Porta Nuova’ station in Turin’s town centre, but the project is supposed to be extended in future years to cover a larger part of the town. This underground transportation project has historical importance for Turin, as the town has dreamed of an underground line for decades, the first project dating as far back as the twenties. In fact, the main street in the town centre (‘Via Roma’) runs on top of a tunnel built during the fascist era (when ‘Via Roma’ was built); the tunnel was supposed to host the underground line and is now used as an underground car park.
Demographics
As of 2001, Turin is the fourth-largest city in population in Italy, with a population of 857,433. There is a large proportion of people with southern-Italian background as a consequence of the mass immigration of the second half of the twentieth century, and a significant presence of immigrants from Africa and the Asia.
Sites of interest
One of its main symbols is the Mole Antonelliana, which hosts the National Cinema Museum of Italy. The Cathedral of St John the Baptist houses the Shroud of Turin, an old linen cloth with an imprint of a man, which is believed by many to be the cloth that covered Jesus in his grave. The Museo Egizio has the most important collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world after the Cairo Museum.
Turin offers a circuit of great historical and architectural interest: the Savoy Residences. In addition to the Royal Palace, the official residence of the Savoys until 1865, the circuit includes palaces, residences and castles in the city centre and in the surrounding towns. Torino is home to Palazzo Chiablese, the Royal Armoury, the Royal Library, Palazzo Madama, Palazzo Carignano, Villa della Regina, and the Valentino Castle. In the area around the city, the castles of Rivoli, Moncalieri, Venaria, Agli, Racconigi, and Govone can be visited. The Hunting Lodge by Juvarra can be admired in Stupinigi and there is also the royal estate in Pollenzo. Some of these (first and foremost Rivoli, the location of the Museum of the same name) host events, exhibitions and cultural initiatives not only of local interest. In 1997, this complex of historical buildings was recognised as a world heritage site by Unesco.
