- Founded in 1824, Egizio is the world’s oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture.
- OMA’s David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas, collaborated with local architects.
- Museo Egizio 2024, with an open courtyard, will again be a main civic space in Turin.
“By reorganizing the current museum’s public areas, we have created the Piazza Egizia, shared between Museo Egizio and the city.” OMA’s David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas have won the competition to transform Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy, the world’s oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture. The design creates a new covered courtyard known as Piazza Egizia and a series of connected urban rooms within the existing museum, opening the cultural space to all.
Museum Egizio founded in 1824 is the world’s oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture, housed in the famous Collegio dei Nobili building in Turin. A complex consisting of exhibition galleries, the Academy of Sciences, and an open courtyard, the museum’s architecture has undergone numerous alterations in the past two centuries, increasingly becoming enclosed and detached from the rest of the city.
Architects were invited to re-imagine the many spaces and open the museum back out to the people, while drawing new visitors in.
OMA’s design was selected among competition entries by Kengo Kuma and Associates, Pininfarina Architecture, Carlo Ratti Associati, and Snøhetta.
The winning competition design was led by OMA’s David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas, in collaboration with local architects Andrea Tabocchini Architecture, T-Studio, and historical consultant Professor Andrea Longhi.
Museo Egizio 2024
OMA Managing Partner – Architect David Gianotten said: “Museo Egizio, with an open courtyard, is historically a main civic space in Turin. Our team believes that it is vital to restore the public nature of the museum and integrate it back with Turin’s network of public spaces.
By reorganizing the current museum’s public areas, we have created the Piazza Egizia, which is a place for all kinds of activities shared between Museo Egizio and the city.”
Museo Egizio 2024 addresses the museum’s historic role as a main civic space in Turin and its 21st century social ambitions. The design creates a new covered courtyard known as Piazza Egizia and a series of connected urban rooms open to all, integrating the museum back with Turin’s network of public spaces, while instilling it with a lucid identity.
The project reorganizes the museum’s public areas into six distinctive urban rooms, each with its unique scale, function, and quality. The largest urban room central to the museum is the Piazza Egizia, designed as a public space shared between Museo Egizio and the city.
OMA Project Architect Andreas Karavanas said: “We have conceptualized the Piazza Egizia as a palimpsest that reveals the different layers of the museum’s history. This approach restores coherence to the architecture and lends the museum a lucid identity, while ensuring that the institution’s new needs are fulfilled.”
A central Spine connects the six urban rooms together, also to both of the museum’s entrances on Via Accademia and Via Duse. Openings have been introduced to the current building façade on Via Duse, inviting the public into the museum and Piazza Egizia for various daily leisure activities.
A geometric ground floor pattern – inspired by the museum’s artefacts such as the Merit’s funerary mask – creates visual continuity across the urban rooms.
The Levels of Museum Egizio
The Piazza Egizia is a double-level, multifunctional courtyard conceived as a palimpsest of Museum Egizio’s history. Here, the original architecture and traces of interventions over time are showcased.
At level 0, the multiple historic openings of the courtyard – which had been closed since the museum’s 2010 renovation – have been restored, connecting this public space back to the city. Two ground openings at level 0 – directly above the Egyptian Garden and the event and learning space – bring light and direct visitors to the underground.
At level -1 where the Egyptian Garden and the event and learning space are located, Collegio dei Nobili’s original façade – also concealed since the 2010s – is uncovered.
A transparent canopy, supported by extensions of existing columns, is installed above the Piazza Egizia to create a tempered environment. The canopy’s aluminium cladded steel structural grid – defined by the regular rhythm of Collegio dei Nobili’s façade – is in itself a device for rainwater collection, air ventilation, and lighting provision, answering to the museum’s ambitions for sustainability.
Free spaces for the people
The Piazza Egizia and other urban rooms are open beyond working hours and welcome all visitors, with or without tickets.
Their public nature offers possibilities for the museum to extend its opening hours. A selection of Museo Egizio’s artefacts is on display for the general public’s initial encounters with the museum collection.
From the urban rooms, visitors go on to see the museum exhibitions, or stay for free leisure activities and events, or continue strolling into other civic spaces in Turin.
Museo Egizio 2024 is a destination for scholars and an interested public, and a rediscovered public place for all.
