Filippo Juvarra - Churches in Turin

Churches in Turin

Juvarra's period of most intensive activity as an architect began in 1714, when he was then recruited to Piedmont where Victor Amadeus II of Savoy first employed him in a scenographic project, then elevated Juvarra to the position of the first architect of the court. The fame obtained here led to demand for his talent and capacities at some of the richest noble and royal courts of Europe: in 1719 he was in Portugal, planning the palace at Mafra for King John V (1719–20), after which he travelled to London and Paris.

One of Juvarra's master works, the church of the Superga was completed in 1731 atop a mountain top overlooking the city of Turin. It was part-picturesque monument and royal mausoloeum for the family of Savoy. It is said that the site was chosen because of a vow given here by Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, then duke and future king, as he surveyed the field of operations while defending the city from the sieging French armies during the Battle of Turin. Construction was arduous, and took over fourteen years, including two years to flatten the mountaintop, and at incredible cost and effort to bring the stones and supplies to the peak. Behind the church was a monastery. The classical portico is appended to a centralized church with a highly vertical, seventy five meter, baroque dome; the latter creates a mountain atop a mountain effect.

Juvarra also designed the facade of the church of Santa Cristina (1715–1718), the church of San Filippo (after Filippo Neri), the church of Santa Croce, the Basilica della Natività, and the chapel of St Joseph (1725) in the church of Santa Teresa in Turin. He also built in Turin the church of the ‘’ Blessed Virgin of the Carmine’’ (1732-1736), where the space is concentrated around the central hall with the scenographic effect of light falling from above. He also helped decorate the interior of many churches in Turin.

He also built other churches, including the bizarre, Borrominesque church of San Gregorio in Messina, Sicily. In Mantua, he added a tall buttressed dome to the Alberti church of Sant'Andrea.