Alpine architecture

The traditional architecture of rural buildings, made using wood and stone, poor raw materials that the alpine environment provides, in the last century, with the rise of tourism, has been integrated with a new architecture that ranges from the eclectic style of the late 19th century to the modern style proposed by architects like Mollino or Bonadè Bottino.
 

The Susa Valley today represents an open-air museum where ancient villages still intact coexist with modern styles and architectural experiments.

High and low Susa valleys are characterized by traditional architectures and very different building types due to sensitive historical and cultural differences, environmental and climatic conditions, and available resources.
The alpine dwelling is always structured in a functional way to meet specific functions. The economy and agro-silvo-pastoral activities vary with altitude, which influences the way the house and the inhabited nucleus are conceived.

The residential environments occupy minimal portions of the entire volume of the house. Instead, spaces intended for animal shelter and supplies for the sustenance of humans and animals, which constitute the wealth of the farming family, prevail.

The Susa Valley has interpreted styles and experiments also in the field of architecture, particularly with the discovery of the Alps and the birth of tourism.

The romantic echo of the Grand Tour is followed by the spread of mountaineering and then hiking, with vacations and summer stays, making the style of the "Alpine picturesque" popular, which spreads well in the Susa Valley in the "mid-mountain" locations between 1880 and 1920.

Modern architecture arrived in the upper Susa Valley in the first half of the 20th century, following the development of tourist resorts and the ever-wider spread of winter sports.
The modern technologies for lift systems developed in those years allowed the new tourist settlements to be freed from valley floors and locations accessible only by car and railway, allowing the creation of the first high-altitude stations like Sestriere.

This - created through an impressive economic and real estate operation coordinated by Giovanni Agnelli and architect Vittorio Bonadè Bottino - was conceived innovatively through an integrated project of architecture, settlement, and ski domain that is characterized by the centrality given to the overall architectural image and careful planning of functions in relation to accessibility and vehicular traffic.