Museo Egizio 2024 | 2022

Founded in 1824 inside the building of Collegio dei Nobili, the Egyptian Museum of Turin is the oldest museum in the world dedicated entirely to Egyptian culture. The architectural project, which won an international design competition, recovers the original character of the Palazzo del Collegio dei Nobili by integrating the building into its urban context, restoring a coherence and an overall identity that is now hardly perceptible and offering visitors a museum with a strong public vocation. During the last two centuries, the building has undergone many interventions that are not consistent with the initial layout, contributing to its introverted character. The building, in fact, despite being in the heart of the city of Turin, is separated from its system of public spaces.

The project reorganizes the museum’s public areas into six distinctive urban rooms, each with its unique scale, function, and quality: Via Accademia delle Scienze, the Atrium, the Portico, the Courtyard, the Schiapparelli Wing and Via Duse. A central Spine connects the six urban rooms three-dimensionally, inviting the public into the museum for various daily leisure activities – while a geometric ground floor pattern creates visual continuity and imagined for multiple uses. A transparent canopy, supported by extensions of existing columns, is installed above the Piazza Egizia to create a tempered environment. Its steel structural grid – defined by the regular rhythm of Collegio dei Nobili’s façade – confers to the roof a simple and elegant appearance.

The roof responds with creativity and elegance also to the objectives of sustainability and efficiency, being in itself a highly technological device for rainwater collection, air ventilation, and lighting provision. A veil between the museum and the sky. “Piazza Egizia” is a project that improves the hospitality and enhances the use of the Museum: a new public space open beyond working hours that welcomes all visitors. People who decide to go through the museum, in fact, can enjoy free use of its public services (cafeteria, event area, Egyptian garden, bookshop, library, etc.).
Alternatively, with the purchase of the ticket, they can access the permanent exhibition path, the immersive room, the classrooms, the research and restoration laboratories and the temporary exhibition spaces. The project gives back to the community the museum courtyard, expanding the exhibition spaces and making some important elements of the museum collection freely accessible, such as the temple of Ellesija. A new living room for the city of Turin.

Location:ItalyArchitect: Andrea TabocchiniArchitecture Office:OMA (lead), Andrea Tabocchini Architecture, T-StudioStructure & MEP:Manfroni Engineering Workshop / SequasClient: Compagnia di San Paolo, with Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino3D Render:Alessandro Rossi, Andrea Tabocchini Architecture, Jeudi Wang, OMA Consultants:Andrea Longhi (History), Studio De Camillis – Fibbi (Lighting), Studio Strati (Conservative Restoration)