Ecce Mole

Photography and beyond – Part 36.

“Earlier I walked past the Mole Antonelliana, perhaps the most brilliant work of architecture ever built - strangely, it has no name - as a result of an absolute drive into the heights - it recalls nothing so much as my Zarathustra. I baptized it Ecce homo and in that spirit placed an enormous free space around it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, 1888 

Part 36 in Heinz Emigholz’s Photography and beyond series, ECCE MOLE contrasts two buildings designed by Italian architect Alessandro Antonelli (1798–1888) in Turin, located 500m apart: the private residence Casa Scaccabarozzi, more commonly known as the Fetta di Polenta (1840), and the Mole Antonelliana (1889). The Mole was initially intended to serve as a synagogue but was acquired by the city before its completion and became a monument to national unity, and ultimately the symbol of Turin. Dominating the city’s skyline, it remains the tallest unreinforced brick building in the world at 167.5m. Since 2000 the Mole has housed the National Museum of Cinema (Museo Nazionale del Cinema).

ECCE MOLE is a concise and mysterious study of opposites: public and private; interior and exterior; up and down; reality and cinema; heaven and hell. It is the first of five short films commissioned by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema on the occasion of its 25th anniversary in the building. The shooting of the film took place in May 2025.