Oval Lingotto
The Oval is the arena built behind the Lingotto, on via Passo Buole, for the speed-skating events of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics[1][3]. Unlike the city's other Olympic venues, it was conceived from the outset with a second purpose written into the design: to become, once the competitions were over, an exhibition pavilion of Lingotto Fiere[1][2]. 200 metres long and 106 wide, with 25,000 square metres of covered space and glass walls that rest on no columns at all, it held about eight thousand spectators during the Games[1][2][3].
The construction site
Work began in January 2004, commissioned by the Agenzia Torino 2006, on the former Fiat Avio site next to the Lingotto railway station, and was initially slowed by the discovery of asbestos[2]. The design is by Studio Zoppini Associati — Alessandro Zoppini with his father Pino — together with the British firm HOK Sport[2][4]. The cost, put at €63 million in February 2005, was later reported as €70 million; the works contract recorded by the services engineers is worth €51.5 million[1][2][4]. The City of Turin earmarked seven million euros for this venue alone, and no other, to preserve its architectural quality[2].
"Beyond the numbers and the cutting-edge technology," Alessandro Zoppini explained, "the real secret of the Oval rests on three watchwords: functionality, simplicity, lightness." Functionality meant a building with a future beyond the Games — athletes registered with speed-skating federations number fewer than four hundred in all of Italy — and for this reason the Oval was presented as "the first venue of its kind in the world that is fully convertible": façades in wood, glass, concrete, zinc and titanium, with generators and seating removable after the competitions[2].
The ice track
The track was a 400-metre oval, the size of a stadium's athletics track, created by smoothing ice over a grid of coils embedded in the concrete: temperature kept at seven degrees below zero and adjustable down to fourteen, ice thickness varying between 1.8 and 2.3 centimetres, with air humidity controlled to allow higher speeds. The designer called it the most difficult technological challenge of the project[2]. The final icing was carried out on 24 and 25 October 2005, followed by a test event from 5 to 12 December[2].
From ice to trade fairs
The official opening came from 9 to 11 December 2005 with the fifth round of the Speed Skating World Cup, after Calgary, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee and Heerenveen: Chiara Simionato and Enrico Fabris were on the ice, and the venue was given a capacity of about 8,300, just a few hundred metres from the Olympic Village[3]. In February 2006 it hosted the twelve Olympic speed-skating events; from 20 May to 4 June of the same year, the Chess Olympiad, with 148 men's teams and 103 women's teams seated where the skaters had raced[5]. Since then it has been a Lingotto Fiere pavilion, hosting events such as Artissima and Restructura.
Timeline
- — The first edition of Casàlia, a new exhibition dedicated to home living and design with more than 150 brands, opens at the Oval Lingotto in Turin, running until 11 October. → TorinoOggi ANSA Piemonte
- — At Artissima 2026, at the Oval Lingotto in Turin, the Rome gallery Gilda Lavia exhibits works featuring riot shields smeared with paint and banknotes bearing Donald Trump's face stained with oil. → La Stampa
Sources
- I due gioielli architettonici che cambiano volto a Torino — La Stampa, n. 36, p. 40, 6 February 2005
- Oval e i suoi fratelli — La Stampa, n. 291, p. 75, 25 October 2005
- Siluri sui pattini al Pala Oval — Stampa Sera, n. 860, p. 96, 9 December 2005
- Palasport per pattinaggio di velocità sul ghiaccio Oval — EP&S
- 37ª Olimpiade degli scacchi: Torino 2006 — OlimpBase