Revisit Fornace Carena

The Pianalto di Poirino is an alluvial plain which originated in the Pleistocene epoch, covering 400km2 of countryside east of Turin, Italy. Featuring layers of clayey silt up to 20m thick, the Pianalto has provided the region with its principal means of anthropization since the first Roman settlements: bricks. At the beginning of the 20th century, every town built on the Pianalto produced its own bricks -- every town but Cambiano, which is why in 1907 Cambiano resident Anna Dughera decided to open a kiln on a piece of land she owned, and to run it together with her three sons Battista, Michele and Luigi Carena. Every time a more advanced kiln was introduced, and a new series of buildings erected to host its production line, the old superfluous structures were not demolished but preserved and converted to other functions. The resulting accumulation of 20th-century industrial architecture is a material document of the evolution of brick production techniques from 1907 to 1980, the year in which the last plant -- which remains in operation -- was completed and put into use.