Torviscosa’s history began in the 1930s with autarky, which encouraged SNIA Viscosa, at the time the largest Italian company in the artificial textiles sector, to find a way to produce cellulose using home-grown raw materials. This gave rise to the company town planned community, featuring the architectural styles beloved of the Fascist regime and with a square inspired by the metaphysical art of De Chirico. The new residential development, which absorbed the previous 18th century hamlet called Torre di Zuino, was located opposite the large industrial plant built at the same time and still active today.

As well as architectural, urbanistic and industrial archaeological heritage, Torviscosa is also home to a rich documentary record, made up of company and municipal archives, maps and plans, large models of the SNIA plants and a photography collection of around 10,000 slides produced from the 1930s onwards by photographer Vincenzo Aragozzini for SNIA and its associates all over Italy.

This website contains the documentary heritage of Torviscosa’s history and the industrial undertaking that created it, offering direct access to archives and photos. It also provides in-depth information on the most important themes of its origin and urban development and suggests possible itineraries for discovering the local area.

It has been created by the Municipality of Torviscosa as part of the “Città dell’autarchia e della cellulosa” (A Town of Autarky and Cellulose) project funded by the European Union through the POR FESR 2007-2013 fund.