The Temple Hall
Reclining beneath the dome before the screens — the museum's enchanted heart.
Wikibusters — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Simone Graziano Panetto from Torino, Italy — CC BY 2.0 · Meinhertz77 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Avisadehh — CC0
The Mole is Turin as the Eiffel Tower is Paris: a 167-metre needle that at completion (1889) was Europe's tallest masonry building — begun by the nobly mad architect Antonelli as a synagogue, then driven upward beyond anyone's endurance but his, until the city bought and finished it as its own emblem, today engraved on Italy's two-cent euro. Within lives the National Cinema Museum — by visitors' consensus among Europe's most enjoyable: the great Temple Hall directly beneath the dome with its reclining seats and giant screens, the spiral of film history winding up around it from shadow-play to Hollywood, in costumes, props and optical toys bewitching every age. The summit is the panoramic glass lift: piercing the dome's heart, suspended in sixty metres of void, up to the needle's balcony — Turin a stately grid, the Alps its white wall.
Reclining beneath the dome before the screens — the museum's enchanted heart.
The seventh art's history winding up around the void.
Sixty metres suspended through the dome's heart — an unforgettable minute.
Via Montebello 20, 10124 Turin
Accorsi-Ometto Museum of Decorative ArtsIn the room that carries his name stands a bureau made by Pietro Piffetti in 1734 minutes walk4.6
Piazza Vittorio VenetoA large square east of central Turin ending at the river Po, among the largest a6 minutes walk4.6
Palazzo Carignano and the Risorgimento MuseumPalazzo Carignano is Turin's boldest Baroque and Italy's weightiest political ad8 minutes walk4.7
Regional Museum of Natural SciencesIn the middle of the hall stands a stuffed Indian elephant called Fritz, who arr8 minutes walk4.3
Piazza CastelloCastello is Turin's geometric and royal centre: from it the city was planned, it8 minutes walk4.9The Jewish community commissioned a synagogue on a modest budget; he kept raising the design year on year past money, contracts and accepted physics — until the community disowned the climbing tower and the city bought it. The nonagenarian died just short of completion, leaving Europe's tallest masonry and a name proverbial for nobly reckless architectural ambition.
It succeeds best precisely with them: a fabulous building, a lounging hall, interactive optical games and an adventure lift — cinema here is spectacle's doorway, not a lecture. Cinephiles add an hour for the artefacts; everyone leaves content.
Two hours: the museum's ascending spiral first, the lift as finale — sunset from the balcony for the well-timed. The lift-only ticket suits the rushed, at the cost of a museum that deserves better.