The large construction sites from the perspective of the forest

Saturday 9 March 2024 at 5pm in Salbertrand, home to the Gran Bosco Natural Park and the Colombano Romean Ecomuseum.

Presentation of the doctoral thesis “The large construction sites in the perspective of the forest. Environmental history of architecture in the Kingdom of Sardinia” discussed by Doctor Martina Motta as part of the PhD in “Architecture. History and Project” of the Polytechnic of Turin.

The research project aims to analyze the Turin architecture of the Baroque Age of the Kingdom of Sardinia through a new perspective, that of the territories from which the construction timber was extracted.

To date, we have an exhaustive bibliography relating to the most famous Savoy architecture, such as the Royal Palace, the Teatro Regio, the Arsenal, and the leisure buildings, the Venaria Reale or the Stupinigi hunting lodge. However, historiographical research has always focused on the analysis of the completed architectural artefact, therefore once the construction site has been completed. What happened before and elsewhere?

Through the selection of two specific case studies, the Teatro Regio and the Basilica of Superga, the research expands the investigation temporally and spatially, focusing on the wood supply chain: from which forests did the wood used in carpentry come from; what extraction techniques were used; what method of transporting wood, from the mountains to Turin; what possible impact on local territories.

The study context of urban construction sites therefore becomes the Upper Susa Valley, in the western Alps.