Skyscraper

grattacielo gallipoli - gallipolivirtuale.it

Crossing the bridge that connects the old city to the mainland, we find on our right the icon of modernity Gallipoli: the “Glass Palace”, that is Gallipoli’s most commonly called skyscraper, because of its fourteen floors situated where once a Roman column marked the end of the appendix of the old Via Traiana.
It was built between the 60s and 70s by the real estate developer Otello Torsello.
In the ’80s it underwent a restyling that redeveloped it colouristically if not urbanistically, since its size shaded the buildings which had been built outside the walls during the Belle Epoque. It has been accepted by the inhabitants of the city as an element of connotation and the panorama enjoyed from its upper floors is undoubtedly suggestive. It currently houses receptive and commercial facilities and a multiplex theatre cinema. For fishermen returning to the port, it has replaced the lighthouse reference on the island of Sant’Andrea.