The Fiat Factory and race track by the Italian architect Giaccomo Matte-Trucco was built between 1920 and 1923 in Turin, Italy, as a pioneering work in the application of reinforced concrete construction to an industrial plant.

The five floors were ordered sequentially to provide from engine machining and body assembly to maintenance  and testing. This last takes place in the open air, on the roof where a banked reinforced concrete racetrack had been built. At the ends the banking of this track rises and this activation of the roof, together with its highly sculptural form was to inspire Le Corbusier’s conception of the roofscape for his Unité apartment block built at Marseilles in 1952.

From a structural point of view, however, the most remarkable innovation was the helicoidal car ramps at either end of the block which were braced by an extremely elegant system of reinforced concrete ribs, a system which in retrospect recalls the theoretical projects of de Baudot and seems to anticipate the later realizations of Pier Luigi Nervi, such as his Gatti Wool factory built at Rome in 1953.

Since 1923 the building has been updated with additions reflecting contemporary architectural styles but the race track remained untouched still being a one mistake racetrack.

Last picture by luke1607

More about the building  - Kenneth Frampton and Yukio Futagawa. Modern Architecture 1851-1945. p195