Overview

The “International Labour Exhibition - Turin 1961” was held in Turin, Italy, from May 1 to October 31, 1961. A special exhibition under the 1928 Convention, it was organized by the Turin '61 Committee as part of Italy's celebration of the centennial of national unification. Its theme was "Man and his Work - A Century of Technological and Social Developments: Achievements and Prospects." The Expo covered 50 hectares, welcomed 19 participating countries and recorded 5,000,000 visits.

Origins and the bid

Turin had been the first capital of unified Italy, and the city had already hosted an international exhibition in 1911. The BIE recognized the 1961 Expo at its 43rd General Assembly on May 5, 1959. Its aim was to present a century of achievements in science and technology and to make them accessible to the public. The international exhibition formed one part of a broader celebration known as Italia 61, which also included a Mostra delle Regioni of 19 regional pavilions arranged in the shape of the Italian peninsula and the Flor 61 flower show in the Parco del Valentino.

The site

The centerpiece was the Palazzo del Lavoro (Palace of Labour). Gio Ponti designed the pavilion, and the contract-competition launched in July 1959 was won that October by the firm Nervi & Bartoli, whose designers were Pier Luigi Nervi, his son Antonio Nervi and the engineer Gino Covre. The square roof was divided into 16 independent umbrella-shaped units, each 40 meters on a side and carried on a single central pillar, separated by strips of skylights. The hall measured 158 meters across and 26 meters high, with a floor area of 47,000 square meters, and it was built in under a year, from February to December 1960. Inside, the six members of the European Community presented a joint exhibit on sources of energy, the British section focused on scientific progress and the United States on technological progress in industry, particularly communications.

Transport was itself an attraction. An Alweg monorail ran 1.2 kilometers on a single elevated beam, reached speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour and carried about 500,000 passengers during the Expo. A cable car linked the grounds to the Parco Europa in the hills of Cavoretto, and Fiat sponsored a Circarama pavilion seating 1,000 people for a 360-degree film based on a system developed by Walt Disney. Nearby, the Palazzo a Vela, designed by Annibale and Giorgio Rigotti, rose on a hexagonal base set within a circle 130 meters across.

Legacy

Several plans for the site did not survive the Expo. A proposal to extend the monorail to 12 kilometers as public transport was abandoned in 1963, and the cable car was dismantled, although its stations can still be seen. The northern monorail station was later converted into the Regina Margherita Children's Hospital. The Palazzo del Lavoro fell out of use in the 1970s and remains largely neglected, although its renovation is under consideration.

Expo 1961 Turin used the language of engineering to mark a national anniversary, and Nervi's Palazzo del Lavoro, still standing, remains its most ambitious structural legacy.