Palermo Images, Sicilian Building Pictures, Architecture in Sicily, City, History

Palermo Photos, Sicily

Key Buildings in the Sicilian capital, southern Italy

Photos in Palermo

We’ve selected what we feel are the key examples of Palermo Buildings, Sicily. We aim to include Sicilian projects that are either of top quality or interesting, or ideally both.

The city was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as ‘Ziz’. The present name is derived from the Greek ‘Panoremus’ meaning ‘always fit for landing in’.

If you enjoy historic architecture the city will be very attractive, in fact it has been really successful at retaining its patina – both the historic streets and spaces of the four old quarters but also the texture of the stone paving and building facades. Essentially it is a well preserved ancient city, once part of the Roman Empire.

We have 2 pages of Palermo Architecture selections with links to many individual project pages.

Palermo Architecture : Key Buildings in Sicily, southern Italy.

Palermo Photos : general photos around the city (this page)

Palermo Building Photos

Palermo Architecture Photos, arranged alphabetically:

Pictures are copyright Adrian Welch / Isabelle Lomholt, taken in July 2013:

Palermo markets

Ballaro Market – located in the Old City quarter of Albergheria, this is the largest and most captivating of the four markets (one for each of Palermo’s quarters), we visited all of them!:

Vucciria market – historic quarter of the Old Town, one of four, this is the northwestern quarter. Apparently in the old days people from different quarters were not to intermarry and each quarter had different trades and their own market:

Palermo churches

Cattedrale – the cathedral, located in the Old City quarter of Capo:

San Domenico – in the neighborhood of La Loggia:

Casa Vacanze Sant’Anna – located on Via Sant’Anna in the Old City quarter of La Kalsa:

Key Buildings in the city

Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele – the largest theatre in Italy, and the third largest opera house in Europe. It has become famous for the scene shot on the massive flight of stairs for the Godfather Part 3 film:

Teatro Politeama Garibaldi – located on Piazza Ruggero Settimo (usually called Piazza Politeama):

Palermo life

restaurant:

shrine:

wedding:

Galleria d’Arte Moderna – Modern Art Gallery in the Old City quarter of la Kalsa:

Stadio Renzo Barbera – the main football stadium in Palermo, currently home of U.S. Città di Palermo football team. The building capacity is 36,442 and it is located Viale del Fante, 11.

Grand Hotel Et des Palmes – historic luxury boutique hotel in Palermo – a classic:

Palermo nighttime panorama:

We also feature buildings in other parts of Sicliy:

Gibellina Buildings – our suggestion if you have time is to visit both new and old Gibellina, separated by 18km. The new city is quite dull in many parts and located staright off the autostrada. The old city is smaller and further inland on twisty roads, but probably more captivating for most visitors.

Gibellina is a small city and comune in the mountains of central Sicily, Italy in the Province of Trapani. It was destroyed by the 1968 Belice earthquake.

Gibellina Nuova Buildings – The principal central space in the city:

The new city, Gibellina Nuova, was rebuilt some 20 km distant from the old one. The new city was designed by many of the most prominent artists and architects in Italy, but done in a piecemeal fashion so that the parts of the new city bear little relation to one another or to the indigenous architecture of Sicily.

Ruderi di Gibellina (as the ruins of the city are now referred to) remained just as it was after the earthquake, practically a ghost-town. Artist Alberto Burri covered the entirety of the ruins in concrete, while preserving the shape of the buildings and the streetscape. Additionally, Italian sculptor Pietro Consagra and Senator Ludovico Corrao formed an open air museum with a Consagra sculpture “Porta del Belice” or “Door to Belice” at the entrance. Consagra expressed a wish to be buried at Gibellina on his deathbed in July 2005.

Corleone Buildings – a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in central-west Sicily – the birthplace of the fictional mafia boss Vito Corleone from the legendary film “The Godfather”.

This large town has long been associated with La Cosa Nostra and the birthplace of notorious Salvatore ‘Totò’ Riina, a recent ‘boss of bosses’, his successor Bernardo Provenzano and his associate the psychopathic killer Luciano Leggio. We visited on our way to Il Cretto, a memorial to the 1968 earthquake that decimate western Sicily (the rupture tarmac roads still bear witness to the destructive power of the earthquake):

More Palermo Building Developments online soon

Palermo Architecture Walking Tours

Palermo Recommendations

Hotel
Hotel Ambasciatori
4-star, central location on Via Roma about 2 minutes walk from the Quattro Canti (centre point of the Old City), courteous staff but the highpoint is the rooftop terrace for breakfast, drinks or dinner. One negative is the dining (they said they had a new chef) which was a little pricey for the quality.
Address: Via Roma, 111 – 90133 Palermo Tel. +39
Phone: +39 091 6166881
http://www.ambasciatorihotelpalermo.com/

Restaurant
we tried various restaurants over 9 days but gravitated towards two pedestrian streets close to the theatre (Teatro Massimo) which each contained about 5 restaurants whee you could eat in or more typically out.
Address: the streets are Via Bara All’Olivella and Via Dell ‘Orologio.

Cafe
Bar Flauto Giuseppina (caffe lorentino) on Via Principedi di Scordia
superb coffee granitas and delightful service when we were there.
Address: Via Principe di Scordia, 7, 90139 Palermo, Italy
Phone: +39 091 584844

Sicilian Architecture

Villa Niscemi – the suburban home of the Mayor located west of the city, e-architect on tour: