As workmen chat around him in a dust-strewn former army barracks in Turin, writer and director Alessandro Baricco explains why, despite appearances, his latest cultural undertaking does not feel so very different from the work he usually produces.

"It's a very similar mental process [to making a film] … You have a vision … you convince people to give you money for the vision," he says, "and then a load of people have different crafts and different talents, and you can only realise your vision with their crafts and talents."

On this occasion, Baricco is not directing a film or writing a book. His vision is for a lavish multi-million-euro expansion of a project he began 20 years ago and which is now, even as Italy experiences one of its longest post-war recessions, looking to a bigger and brighter future.

Thanks to his drive, and the help of two of Italy's most famous businesses, the Scuola Holden, a private storytelling school for young adults, is set to be almost unrecognisable when it reopens later this year.

And, as it prepares to teach hundreds of new students, some are hoping it can also give Italy some lessons in how it can embark on a new, more vibrant national narrative.

"First we can learn from the rest of Italy," says Baricco, looking out of the window at the red-brick courtyard of the old barracks. "But, then, yes, we're experimenting with things… I think the fact that this exists – when it exists, in October – will make some people wonder, 'how is something like this possible in a time as hard as this?' It is doable. Someone has done it."

Baricco, the bestselling author of novels such as Silk and City, learned that "you have to have courage and vision" from his partner in the school, Oscar Farinetti. The founder of Eataly, a high-end food store chain which started in Turin and has since conquered New York and Japan, announced his company's investment in the Holden's rebirth in May.

Carlo Feltrinelli, of the Feltrinelli publishing house and bookstore chain, did so last year. "Now more than ever," says Feltrinelli, the school will be "an international breeding ground not only of storytellers, but of real and true talents in all professions involving writing."

Founded in 1994 by Baricco and several others, the Holden – named after JD Salinger's character – has for the past two decades been a small establishment with around 30 students in each intake. As of October, along with its impressive, 4,000 sq metres location and big-name partners, it aims to have 200 students in every year – 400 in total – many of them foreign. All except one of the new specialised courses – which included film-making, acting and 'crossmedia' – will be taught in both Italian and English. "The Italian market is too small for a school of 200 people a year," explains Leah Iandiorio, the school's CEO. "Where can they go if we don't move outside of Italy? It's important to think European."

The Holden, whose graduates have gone onto jobs in publishing, advertising, theatre and other industries, has an explicit focus on the vocational aspect of its training. It warns prospective students, who must be aged between 18 and 30: "It's not a school where you can simply stay a while and study beautiful things. If there's no concrete link to the job market, it has failed in its objective."

In a country where 39% of under-25s are out of work, this has a particular resonance. "In this period, when the problem of youth unemployment in Italy – and not only in Italy – is enormous, it's becoming even more important for young people to have something extra," says Baricco.

Annual fees are 8,700 euros; loans are available.

In its embrace of the private sector, the Holden embodies another practice which an increasing number of Italians are starting to see as vital if the country is to capitalise properly on one of its major strengths – culture. State spending on culture has virtually dried up in Italy in recent years. Baricco, who has a 30-year lease on the barracks from Turin's city council, wants the government to help facilitate private sector involvement in the arts by changing legislation he says hampers it.

But he is under no illusion that Prime Minister Enrico Letta's fragile government will take on such a task. "When we have a real government in Italy, chosen by a solid majority, it could and should do it," he says.

"Public management of the cultural sector was huge social conquest 40 or 50 years ago…but now the story has changed and we need to have the courage to abandon certain ideological myths. Neither the left nor the right in Italy seems ready to do this."

For Francesco Farinetti, managing director of Eataly and son of Oscar, the partnership with the Holden is a natural one. With their explanatory panels and educational events, the company's stores are an insight into how storytelling can be used in the corporate world.

By investing in the school as well as pursuing its own expansion, Farinetti believes the company is backing Italy's chief globally-renowned assets: food and culture.

But he would like to see greater effort put into building on the country's strengths. "Dostoevksy said 'beauty will save the world', and we say 'beauty will save Italy'," he says. "We're in a very serious crisis because… those in charge still think that Italy is a place of manufacturing, but that is not so. We are a place where culture, ideas, food, art and fashion are produced – it's all connected with beauty… Now is the time to make the most of these things because they will not last forever."