Date of construction: 1953
Designer: architect Annibale Rigotti (1870 - 1968)
Sculptor: Edoardo Rubino (1871-1954)
Location: Turin Monumental Cemetery Campo Primitivo north n. 459
Type: chapel with room below
Materials: Balma sienite, Frabosa verzino marble, Alpi green marble, white marble
Artistic stained glass and mosaic: Ducato & C. brothers' art workshops in Turin
"The funerary chapel was built in 1953 on a project by the architect Annibale Rigotti. It is a building with an underground chamber with external cladding in polished Balma syenite blocks and Frabosa's verzino marble for the profile of the portal and the steps. The altar is in green Alpi marble. The sculpture of the head, created by the sculptor Edoardo Rubino, is in white marble. The artistic stained glass and the mosaic in the intrados of the chapel were made by the artistic workshop of the Brothers Ducato & C., which was based in Corso Re Umberto at no.17 in Turin. The project underwent a long elaboration due to the fact that at first the clients had requested a chapel with classical characters with traditional motifs, resolved by the designer on the scheme of the Greek temple with portico and cell. This solution, which should have been carried out, was very pleasing to the clients, but the designer Annibale Rigotti also took care of a second, more modern and minimalist project, thus succeeding in realizing the architectural solution to which he held the most. Annibale Rigotti was defined as an inventor of new decorative shapes and in this work the designer's ability and his creative flair is evident even when he tries his hand at such a complex theme as the design of a funeral architecture. The work, with its strongly evocative value, stands out from all the other funerary architectures that he designs. The compositional concept that we see materialized in architecture is a great drape of the mystery that covers the afterlife and arises at the time of the passing. We can see how much attention is devoted to the study of technological details to make architectonically valid the falling folds all around and raised on the door supported by the female head staring at the unknown. The sculpture of the head is the work of the sculptor Edoardo Rubino, who at the end of the construction of the chapel wrote to the architect. Annibale Rigotti: << ... I have the photographs. Once more convinced that your project is really beautiful and noble of ideas and meaning. For the part you entrust me and I hope to be able to do something not unworthy ... >>. The sculptor Edoardo Rubino is buried in the Monumental cemetery of Turin in the Prima Ampliazione area 130. "dott.ssa Carlotta Melis