Orangerie Royal Museums

The Orangerie building complex, or Royal Greenhouses, dating back to the early 20th century, had already undergone restoration work in the 1970s, with the addition of reinforced concrete floors and mezzanines and a glass-fronted external structure, in order to enable it to house the Museum of Antiquities.  The current redevelopment project involves converting the Orangerie into an exhibition space for temporary exhibitions of the Royal Museums, thanks to the creation of a new entrance, a museum shop, a hall with a ticket office, a café, a restaurant, an auditorium, and some spaces for teaching and offices. The project is based on a study of the reorganization of access points, which has resulted in the demolition and reconstruction of structures that were inconsistent with the historical fabric of the Orangery and the creation of new connecting structures.

The plan is to completely demolish the Fiorio Pavilion, which was added to the Orangery in the 1970s, and rebuild a new structure called the Giardini Pavilion, which will serve as an exhibition space, auditorium, and restoration workshop. The redevelopment project also includes the conservative restoration of the facades and the removal of the structures added to the pavilions in the 1970s, restoring their original spatiality. A new covered walkway will connect the Orangery with the terraces bordering the Upper Gardens and the Royal Museums, providing a new view of the northern part of the city and offering the possibility of opening the lower garden areas to citizens and visitors. The project also includes the upgrading of the building's systems and fire prevention equipment, designed to allow users to clearly understand the historic building.

The development of the structural design was preceded by an initial phase of historical and critical analysis, involving the examination of documentation preserved by the Royal Museums of Turin, particularly that relating to the Fiorio construction site archives and the archives of the former Archaeological Superintendency. In view of the significant changes to the structural system that would have entailed, among other things, the need for seismic retrofitting as required by regulations, further investigations were necessary. These included a series of geognostic and structural surveys of the existing foundations, the ground, and the masonry texture.