Corso Venezia 52 Milano

Fondazione Luigi Rovati

Corso Venezia, the eastern gatewa y t o Milan, is an impor tant street that was embellished in 1770 b y the young son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. She commissioned the architect Piermarini t o create the public gardens now known as the Por ta Venezia gardens. On this urban structure the palaces of the Milanese nobilit y were built including the Ci vic Museum of Natural Hist or y and the Planetarium.

This is the setting of the new ar t museum of the Luigi Rovati Foundation. The building not onl y represents the hist or y of the entire Corso, bu t is also a mirror of the st ories that have taken place within it . The hist or y of a building is impor tant: its stratif ications gi ven b y time, its modif ications, it’s architecture: they reflect the culture and vicissitudes of the families that have inhabited it , and the context in which they li ved.

Au tumn 2022 saw the opening of the museum. It marked the completion of the renovation and remodeling of Milan’s 19th Centur y Palazzo Bocconi-Rizzoli-Carraro b y Mario Cucinella Architects with subterranean galleries dedicated t o Etruscan and contemporar y ar t . The new underground galleries of the Foundation’s Etruscan collection are at the core of this innovati ve addition t o the cit y’s cultural and ci vic lif e at h ist oric 19th-centur y building at 52 Corso Venezia.

The new museum spaces have been concei ved in respect of the pre-existing building and - withou t altering its characteristics - have been completed b y extending the f irst basement floor f or use as a museum and constructing a second basement floor, below the level of the existing f oundations, dedicated t o st orage f or works of ar t and containing all the mechanical ser vices f or the whole building. Studio MCA was entrusted with the interior design, the museum displays, and the general ar t direction.

In addition t o the Etruscan galleries, the Fondazione Luigi Rovati’s ar t museum houses t wo floors of exhibition space, conser vation facilities, an archi ve, a stud y room connected with the Luigi Rovati Foundation Librar y in Monza, and event rooms, a bookshop, a café as well as a restaurant on its t op floor.

These pages: the new museum of the Luigi Rovati Foundation in Milan. In 2015, MCA Mario Cucinella Architects was commissioned to carr y out the architectural renovation of this historic 19th-centur y building at Corso Venezia 52. They were asked to extend and create additional areas for museum uses. With respect to the characteristics of the building, they have extended the first basement floor for use as a museum and constructed a second basement floor, below the level of the existing foundations, dedicated to storage for works of ar t and containing all the mechanical ser vices for the whole building. Studio MCA was also entrusted with the interior design, the museum displays, and the general ar t direction.