Conference Venue

The “Ateneo”, or University, has existed in Turin since 1404. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Victor Amadeus II decided to reform the University and provide a new building in the centre in the city on land near the main court and State institutions. The new “Palazzo” met the functional needs and requirements of prestige. The university reform planned by the prince could not be carried out without a suitable building, with an adequate number of lecture halls, rooms for the Library, the Anatomy Theatre, the administrative offices, and large and elegant halls for the academic ceremonies. To this end he entrusted the building to the architect Michelangelo Garove. The differences between what the architect was planning and what his client wanted, both functionally and room-wise, prompted Victor Amadeus II (who became King of Sardegna in 1713) to call on other professionals and finally to turn to Filippo Juvarra, who arrived in Turin in September 1714. At the time of its inauguration in 1720 the building was not fully finished. When Juvarra died in 1736, he was replaced by his protégé Bernardo Antonio Vittone, who was asked to carry out maintenance work and redesign the museums. It was not until 1823, at the behest of Charles Felix of Sardegna that the entrance door in via Verdi, designed by Giuseppe Talucchi, was built.

Serious damage was caused by bombing in the World War II. Following post-war reconstruction, other work carried out in the 1960s and 1980s caused the greatest problem, seriously undermining preservation of the building itself. Today, after a restoration in the 2000s, the Palazzo has regained its former splendor.

How to reach the Conference Venue (Map)