Palazzo degli Affari, Commercial palace in Turin, Italy

Palazzo degli Affari stands at via San Francesco da Paola 24 in Turin's Borgo Nuovo, housing the offices of the Chamber of Commerce. Its glass and aluminium facade, with convex sides, hangs above the broad roof slab of a base used for car parking, and all vertical links to the base pass through a massive central pillar. Furniture and interior layout were also designed by Mollino.

The Palazzo degli Affari was built on the site of the eighteenth-century Palazzo Morozzo della Rocca, destroyed by bombing in 1943. In 1964 the Turin Chamber of Commerce held a competition for a new headquarters, won by Carlo Mollino, Carlo Graffi, Alberto Galardi and Antonio Migliasso. Construction was delayed and completed in 1972; from 1992 the basement floors became the Torino Incontra congress centre, with a hall named after Mollino.

The building is the seat of Turin's Chamber of Commerce, which commissioned it in 1964 and moved its offices here after completion in 1972. Since 1992 the basement levels have housed the Torino Incontra congress centre, and one of its halls is named after Carlo Mollino, who also designed the furniture and the internal layout.

The building is centrally located in Turin and easy to reach if you are interested in twentieth-century architecture. Visitors should take time to view the facade and entrance areas from outside, as access to the interior may be limited.

The glass body hangs from a single massive central pillar that carries all vertical links to the base, which itself is a car park roof. During construction the pillar's height and the gap above the base were reduced, so the structural feat is less visible from the street than in the original drawings.