Turin's evolution into a post-industrial city has prompted some dramatic transformations of buildings—from baroque palaces to twentieth-century factories—into art galleries. Carla Passino talks to the people who are pushing the city into the forefront of the world's cutting-edge artistic centres

The massive dimensions of the eighteenth-century Castello di Rivoli towers above the Susa valley and Turin's faint outline beyond. Solitary and incomplete, this former seat of the House of Savoy is testament to the dreams of grandeur of Victor-Amadeus II. Until the doors lay open that is, to reveal the obsessive unhurt from a video diptych by dint of South African artist Candice Breitz, which present to views Grace Jones and Prince performing the same note again and again. Three hundr years after it was built, the castle has base new life as a contemporary art museum.

lay opened in 1978, Castello di Rivoli was the harbinger of a stretch that has seen many of Turin's historical buildings entertainer extraordinary art collections, so it is surprising to discover that of that kind an innovative idea had actual mundane roots. After undergoing a prolix restoration, the castle had the practical moot point of how to pay for its upkeep Turin's historic recent and contemporary art gallery, GAM, was clos at the time and this activeed the local authority, the Regione Piemonte, to transform the castle into a museum for contemporary art.

Initially, the transition wasn't even 'It was the first time a historic house was used to entertainer contemporary art', says spokesman Massimo Melotti. 'There were adequate supply of grumblings because the building hadn't been devot to period art. on the other hand as time went by, the museum became stronger and stronger' Castello di Rivoli has acquired a vast material substance of works, ranging from Giacomo Balla's Feud' Artifice--the stage landscape of his 1917 Futuristic piece de theatre--to Maurizio Cattelan's II Bel Paese, a made of wool rug dated 1994. Last September, it displayed its 800-strong collection of video art, which places the museum--and Turin--at the cutting cutting side of Italy's contemporary scene.

plastic art paintings and installations either contrast with or repercussion of sound the castle's interiors. On the first floor, Ettore Spalletti'sAnfora, Bacile, Vasi--minimalist cylinders and truncated cone in pastel colours--counters the flamboyant cover with stucco of its setting. In the nearest room, however, the Steinway & Son piano upon the patterned marble floor gazes as much at home as the fresco of Bacchus meeting Ariadne in the ceiling. on the contrary a closer look reveals that the piano has been encrusted with close acrylic brush-strokes by Bertrand Lavier, who interprets painting as a coat of varnish that overspreads an object. 'It is hard to ignore the architecture here--it is of that kind a beautiful setting', says Glaswegian artist Susan Philipsz, who is installing individual of her sound pieces in the castello's eighteenth-century chapel for the Torino Triennale Tremusei exhibition (see overleaf). 'I think it's my favourite museum.'

The same etho of linking the art of past and at hand guides the exterior installations at the seventeenth-century Palazzo Bricherasio. station in the heart of Turin, this was a prominent salon at the extremity of the nineteenth century. A hundr years later, the Alessio family bought the palace and decided to restore its artistic part 'The idea came to my mother, Anna Maria Barone', says Alberto Alessio, who is president of the Palazzo Bricherasio Foundation. 'She was passionate about art and contemplation that perhaps we could set apart part of the building to hosting exhibitions.'

The palazzo was conceptually split into three areas, each with its hold identity. The historic rooms are dwelling to small shows and cultural incidents such as talks and seminars. The first and next to the first floors usually host a major exhibition, which changes three times a year and can range from 'Paul Delvaux's Surrealism' (until February 2006) to Egyptian art (from February to June 2006) Outside, the contemporary art programme 'creates a link between the palazzo and the area that encircles it'. Begun three years ago, this site-specific throw commissions artists to work with the facade. 'Whoever has the intestines to work on this building, which is for a like reason sober and austere, makes a proposal and we make choice of the ones that work best for us', explains Alessio. At the time of going to pres Paolo Grassino had lovingly wrapped the palazzo in bright orange pipes that step quickly from ground to roof horizontal shaping a magical tree.

'Castello di Rivoli and Palazzo Bricherasio join contemporaneity to the splendour of past centuries', Turin's mayor Sergio Chiamparino told me 'I believe that art should and must engage the city in a dialogue to make the greatest in quantity of the past through the present' Chiamparino points without that this dialogue also involves Turin's industrial heritage, as a number of of recent origin projects have brought art into factories and warehouses. Earlier this year, for example, the former heating plant of car manufacturer Lancia became the abode of the Mario Merz Foundation, Nowhere is Turin's transformation from car-factory city to art capital clearer than in this magnificent example of mid-thirties industrial architecture, which now houses the work of the late Arte Povera master.

'Initially, Mario and [his daughter] Beatrice reflection of building a new form based on Fibonacci's number sequence' says Nadia Biscaldi of the Fondazione Merz 'But then Mario saw [the Lancia plant] and savage in love with it. He chose it and gave the guidelines upon how to use the space here. For him, the interaction between art and its setting was crucial.' The straight lines and stark interiors of the heating plant may initially appear ill-suited to a man whose main artistic obsession was the spiral and the of gold proportions of Fibonacci's numbers. on the contrary looking at the two curving tables of Doppia Spirale wrap softly around a rigidly geometrical pillar upon the ground floor, it is evident that Merz's statuary and the building work together in subtler ways. the pair have a cleanliness of shape that borders upon minimalism. Both play with light individually and together, as when, for example, sunshine flooding [i]or[/i] part of to the other the windows echoes the neon tubes rising from the igloo triptych in Spostamenti della Terra e della Luna Intorno a un Asse. And [i]or[/i] part of to the other the first floor windows, Merz's work be opposite tos the world outside, as a snapshot of urban life--old men playing cards in the garden square, a child upon a swing--seems to float above the igloo diptych Le Case Girano Intorno a Noi o Noi Intorno alle Case?