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Alpine Architecture: from Neo-Gothic to Art Nouveau

Last update: July 11, 2024, 11:34 a.m.

bungalow Alpine architecture

signpost Itinerary

Liberty Neogotico Architettura

By car

Modern architecture arrived in Valle di Susa between the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century following the development of tourist resorts, the spread of winter sports, and the arrival of the railway and the establishment of the first industries.

The romantic echo of the Grand Tour was followed by the spread of mountaineering and then hiking with summer holidays and stays, making the style of "alpine picturesque" popular which spread well in Valle di Susa in the "mid-mountain" locations between 1880 and 1920.

Our journey starts along the sinuous curves that gently climb from Almese the wooded slopes up to Colle del Lys and continues in Alta Valle di Susa where, at the beginning of the 20th century, the mountain became a space for new sports disciplines. Bardonecchia, Sauze d'Oulx, and Sestriere became spaces for the invention and construction of the mountain, true laboratories of urbanization and landscape by Turin architects and engineers who, with creativity and innovation, designed hotels, villas, and condominiums to host the aristocratic and upper-middle-class Turin elite who practiced skiing.

Along the route, Art Nouveau and Neo-Gothic styles can also be seen in Villa Neveaux and Maglificio Fratelli Bosio in Sant'Ambrogio, in the Wild&Abegg cotton mills in Borgone and Chianocco, Villa Ferro in Bussoleno, Villa Antoniotti, Villa Arigo and Villa Ramella in Susa in the first hydroelectric plants along the Dora like Castelpietra in Susa and in the railway stations of the line to Bardonecchia...