SIX BUILDINGS TO MANAGE THE STATE
Today, the Regio Theatre, rebuilt in modern forms, continues its activity as an opera house, while the Cavallerizza Reale will be the setting for the creation of a new Cultural Centre located in the historic centre of the city.
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The Command Zone consists of a succession of palaces located between the central Piazza Castello and Via Verdi, in the heart of the city of Turin. It is an architectural dynastic heritage of extraordinary value, which shaped the image of the Savoy capital during the Ancien Régime. In 1997, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its provision of tangible evidence of the role attributed by the House of Savoy to town planning and architecture.
A real stage for the spectacle of royal magnificence, the monumental complex was developed during the 17th century at the behest of Duke Carlo Emanuele II, as part of a long-standing project to transform the city into a modern capital. In 1673, the expansion of the city towards the river Po provided new spaces that could be used for political and administrative functions. Amedeo di Castellamonte was commissioned to design a chain of buildings leading from the Ducal Palace along a stately route to the theatre, the Academy, the Mint and the Customs House.
After the acquisition of the royal title in 1713, the celebration of the House of Savoy gained new momentum and architect Filippo Juvarra transformed the 17th-century monumental projects into efficient structures at the service of King Vittorio Amedeo II’s administrative reforms. Juvarra designed the Royal Secretariat of State (seat of the Ministries of Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs and War, and now the Prefecture) and the Royal Court Archives, an innovative building dedicated entirely to the collection of state documents, on the foundations of the gallery that linked the various buildings.
When Benedetto Alfieri took over from the architect from Messina in 1738, he set to work on the buildings of the Secretariat and the Cavallerizza (Court Riding School) and rebuilt the Teatro Regio (Theatre Royal), consigning his architectural masterpieces to posterity. With Alfieri’s design, a gallery on the piano nobile linked all the elements of the palaces of power, creating a stately route that could be used comfortably by the court.
The grand design of the Command Zone was completed a century later, when Carlo Bernardo Mosca and Ernest Melano finalised the structures of the Riding School. Even today, the Command Zone represents the stately and administrative centre of the city of Turin: the representative residences are used as museums, with several buildings still fulfilling their original functions, while others have undergone changes in their layout due to the vicissitudes of history.
