The competition concerns one of the most important areas of Turin, a site where part of the city’s history blends in a well-structured and creative way with its culture and economy.
For centuries Porta Palazzo has been not only the commercial centre of Turin, but also a setting for popular folklore and the invention of language. It has always been one of the gateways into the city, one that has seen the largest migratory flows in the history of industrial and industrious Turin. It is also (but not only!) a place of illicit activities, less tolerable of late than in the past, and the centre of a rather romanticised criminal world.
The southern sector of Piazza della Repubblica, whose arcades were built to Juvarra’s design, gives the square an architectural nobility that other parts, which are still clearly visible, have detracted from over the centuries.
From the 19th century onwards, a number of efforts have been made to embellish and connote the square: a design competition held in 1848, the rebuilding project by De Lorenzi (1852), the Officine Savigliano clock market in 1916, the urban transformation plans by Decker, Pifferi and Rossi (1936 and 1940) and Rigotti in 1940. The key resource and feature of Piazza della Repubblica is its market. The market complex of Porta Palazzo, the only one of its kind to contain 1,100 stalls, has developed over three centuries. It is remarkable for the complex and articulated structure that houses such a large number of retailers, with an even wider range of stalls, enabling them to congregate, harmoniously, every day in a single and continuous space. It is
calculated that some 100,000 of the city’s inhabitants visit the markets of Porta Palazzo on a typical Saturday morning: a large city within the city. Fortunately, only some of these 100,000 persons need to park, given that most come to the square by public transport. However, all of them need to move about safely and in an ordered way inside the market. Moreover, Porta Palazzo has to compete with a wide array of external retail outlets in the city centre; the current markets in the square must be in a position to compete with new modern shopping systems.
The current layout of the Porta Palazzo market appears to be broken down into a series of spaces backing onto the buildings designed as indoor markets, which are present in the four squares and separated by the straight intersection of Via Milano, Corso Giulio Cesare and Corso Regina Margherita.
The large open areas are bordered, towards the external perimeter of the square, by a ring of roads for private traffic. This means that virtually every area of the market has a road running beside it, with obvious consequences in terms of interference. The overall impact of private traffic and public transport along the main roads leads to traumatic results, especially at rush hour, creating conditions in which it is not easy for the public to move from one area of the market to another.
One of the largest urban regeneration operations to be launched in Europe during the past few years is now underway in this particularly complex scenario. Together with 25 other European cities, Porta Palazzo has been chosen as the site of an “Urban Pilot Project” backed by the European Union and the Ministry of Public Works. The Urban Pilot Project includes a series of requalification measures covering the entire area of Porta Palazzo, accompanied by further measures regarding the economic and environmental aspects.
In conjunction with the pilot project, the City of Turin has embarked on a comprehensive infrastructure project for the area: the underpass below Piazza della Repubblica. The size of the underpass is large enough to house a wide vehicle lane in each of the two directions, separated by an adequate central traffic strip, as well as safety kerbs and emergency parking between the lanes and the tunnel walls. The roof of the tunnel corresponds with the reorganisation of the public ground area, including the logistic and service areas in the square, and a new layout of its spaces. The aim is to improve the living quality of the square for local residents and not only its use for commercial purposes.
In order to comply with these project requisites and owing to the wealth of expertise and multidisciplinary skills requested by the initiative, it was agreed to launch a project competition backed up by well-structured guidelines based on a sound knowledge of the physical and functional requisites of the area.
(Text written by Architect Riccardo Bedrone, President of the Jury)
GUIDELINES FOR THE COMPETITION

The competition has been launched in 1999. In april 2000 the list of winning projects. In May an appeal to TAR Piemonte, by some participants, has blocked the competition, and the list of winners has been annulled.

The prizes for the winners were
£. 100.000.000 (51.645 euro) to the winning project
£. 50.000.000 (25.822 euro) to the second
£. 30.000.000 (15.493 euro) to the third
£. 5.000.000 (2.582 euro) to each of the four following projects

Winners were (before annulation of the competion):
Studio Associato Architettura e Urbanistica Anguillametrica (I classificato), Boeri Studio (II classificato), Ingegnere Nicola Danzo (III classificato), Architetto Barbara Citterio (IV classificato), Ingegnere Vittorio Neirotti (V classificato), Architetto Raffaella Bonino (VI classificato), Studio Libidarch (VII Classificato)