MY MOLE
Some monuments are places you visit; others become part of the way you recognise a city and yourself within it. For me, the Mole Antonelliana belongs to the second category. It is the shape I look for in Turin’s skyline whenever I return.
My Mole
I have looked at it for years from different angles and it still surprises me. From Piazza Castello, from rooftops, from the streets of the centre or from the hills, it changes with the light, the sky and the season. It is not simply Turin’s symbol: it is the city’s signature.
Antonelli’s vertical dream
Alessandro Antonelli designed it in 1862 as a synagogue for Turin’s Jewish community. The project changed repeatedly, growing taller, more complex and more expensive until the original commissioners withdrew. The City of Turin then acquired the building and continued the work. The Mole was completed in 1889 and later reached about 167 metres, transforming from a religious project into a civic monument and the city’s defining symbol.
Museo Nazionale del Cinema · Mole Antonelliana ↗Inside the Mole: the National Cinema Museum
Since 2000 the Mole has housed the National Cinema Museum, but the museum’s story begins much earlier. In 1941 Maria Adriana Prolo started the collection that would become its core. The Cinema Museum opened to the public at Palazzo Chiablese in 1958 and was officially recognised as the National Cinema Museum in 1965. On 20 July 2000 it reopened inside the Mole Antonelliana. The exhibition then rises through the building like a spiral, combining magic lanterns, posters, sets, objects and moving images.
Rising through the Mole, looking out over Turin
The lift through the void
The panoramic lift crosses the vast central hall and reaches the Tempietto at 85 metres. It is one of the building’s most theatrical experiences: rising through open space before Turin suddenly unfolds around you.
Turin from the Tempietto
From above, the roofs, the Po, the hills and the Alps become part of a single view. It is not only spectacular; it makes the shape of Turin immediately understandable.
Why cinema belongs here
The Mole is not merely a container for the museum. Its verticality, vast central hall and ascending route are part of the experience. Cinema is made of light, darkness, perspective and surprise, and few buildings could frame it with the same force.
Permanent exhibition ↗A symbol that still moves me
I could photograph the Mole a hundred times and still find another angle. Perhaps that is why it remains Turin’s most powerful symbol for me: always the same, never quite identical.