Mole Antonelliana
— — a spire that didn't know when to stop.
Not only on a wall.
“The signature of the Turin skyline. Begun in 1863 as a synagogue and finished in 1889 as a city monument, the Mole climbs 167 metres in brick and stone, the tallest masonry building in Europe. Since 2000 the interior has held the National Museum of Cinema, a vertical museum the visitor moves through standing still. A panoramic lift rises through the open dome to a terrace under the spire.
Mole Antonelliana, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Mole Antonelliana stands in central Turin, two blocks east of the Po and a short walk from the Royal Palace. It was designed by the architect Alessandro Antonelli, who broke ground in 1863 on a commission from the city's Jewish community as a new synagogue. The work passed to the municipality in 1878, and the spire was completed in 1889, four years after Antonelli's death. At 167.5 metres, the building remains the tallest unreinforced masonry building in Europe and the lasting symbol of the city it overlooks.
Antonelli pushed brick and stone past every conservative limit of his trade. The dome rests on four slender masonry piers above a square base, and the original spire climbed in successive narrower tiers to a height no European masonry building had reached. A 1953 storm took the top forty-seven metres of the spire down; it was rebuilt soon after in a steel armature clad to match the original silhouette. Antonelli died in 1888 at 90, having spent the last twenty-five years of his life on a single building most of his contemporaries had thought impossible.
The Museo Nazionale del Cinema has occupied the Mole since 2000 and is among the most-visited museums in Italy. The vertical galleries trace cinema from magic lanterns through Federico Fellini, and a panoramic lift rises through the open dome to a viewing terrace at 85 metres. The museum opens Wednesday through Monday and closes on Tuesdays; the lift runs the same hours. From the terrace the Alps fill the northern horizon on clear winter mornings, and the Po and the Superga basilica anchor the south and east.