Galleria Subalpina

The Galleria Subalpina, originally the Galleria dell'Industria Subalpina, is the covered passage linking piazza Castello to piazza Carlo Alberto, with a further entrance from via Battisti 11; designed in 1873 by Pietro Carrera and opened in 1874, it is a more compact version of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan.^[1]

The project

The name pays tribute to the bank that funded the work, the Banca dell'Industria Subalpina; in the design drawings the gallery is called a «bazar» and was meant to connect piazza Castello with the Post Office, which had been moved to piazza Carlo Alberto.^[2] The hall has two floors, with iron and glass used mainly in the ribs of the vault, and the floor rests on eleven arches, beneath which the hall of the Romano café-concert was built.^[1]^[2] Carrera had planned a garden at the centre, recalled in recent times by flower beds.^[1]

The premises

At the entrance on piazza Castello, the Baratti & Milano café has stood since 1875.^[3] In the lower level, where the Salone Romano had hosted shows since 1898, a cinema opened in 1905, known from 1911 as Cinema Romano: the Nuovo Romano is today Turin's oldest cinema hall.^[1] The antiquarian bookshop «La Casa del Libro» opened there in 1926.^[4] Films such as Dario Argento's «Quattro mosche di velluto grigio» and Luigi Comencini's «La donna della domenica» were shot in the gallery.^[5]

The war and today

The bombing of 8 August 1943 struck the east side and seriously damaged the glass roof, the cinema and the café; the gallery was rebuilt with some changes.^[6]^[1] In 2024 the Blackstone fund, which had acquired it in 2021, sold it for around 40 million euros; in February 2025 it was bought by a family of entrepreneurs from the Langhe, with plans for cultural events.^[7]^[5] Since 20 January 2025 the Libreria Luxemburg has moved in.^[8]

Related articles: Baratti & Milano

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