Palazzo dei Musei di Modena is “doubled” and a large rear section, once of healthcare relevance, is now added to the historic spaces already intended for the Estense Gallery, Civic Museum, Poletti and Estense libraries, Municipal Archives, Festival Filosofia. Here, where it has been active for centuries the former Este hospital and then ASL clinics, after the complex works begun in 2019, on a thousand square meters of the ground floor spaces for museum servicestwo rooms for temporary exhibitions of 300 square meters each, three new rooms for the Civic Museum And a multimedia area.
The redevelopment carried out by the companies Politecnica, Ingegneri Riuniti, CandiniArte, Razzetti and Bosazza and D’Adiutorio Costruzioni, for a total value of over 19 million euros (financed within the «Ducato Estense» project of the MiC, Ministry of Culture, for 800 thousand euros, and by the Modena Foundation), also saw the technical recovery of the ancient building and the rationalization of the large internal courtyards of the complex, as well as the rearrangement on the upper floors of the «Campori», «Sernicoli» and «Boni» exhibition rooms of the Civic Museum.
At the same time, on the upper floors of the former hospital, another construction site is working on theexpansion of the Estensi Galleries directed by Alessandra Necci, on an area of approximately 2,700 square meters (financed with 5 million euros, MiC and Pnrr funds). Once the first phase has been completed, the redevelopment project will continue with the second, again on the upper floors of the former hospital. The intervention, worth approximately 9.6 million euros of which 6 million financed by Atuss (2021-27 European structural funds managed by the Emilia-Romagna Region), will mainly concern a rationalization of the spaces pertaining to the Civic Museum and the «Luigi Poletti» Library, specialized in art and architecture. The volume tells everything A palace for culture. The redevelopment project of the former Este hospital in Modena (Franco Cosimo Panini publisher, Modena 2024, pp. 128, 30 euros). Edited by Giovanni Cerfogli, responsible for the entire restoration, Silvia Pellegrini, Francesca Piccinini, Cristina Stefanithe volume analyzes in eight essays the redevelopment and history of the ancient palace, which originated in 1292 and became the city’s Albergo dei Poveri in the 18th century.
The palace hosts until June 16th the exhibition «Franco Fontana. Modena inside» (curated by Lorenzo Respi and organized by Fmav), an unprecedented comparison between 15 photographs by Fontana (Modena, 1933) and contemporary artists such as Mimmo Rotella, Christo, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mauro Reggiani and other.
From the large atrium of the newly restored wing develops the permanent immersive multimedia path «Avia Pervia» (motto that appears on the ancient banner of the Municipality of Modena). Illustrates, in five stages (also in English), the historical story of the city: the link with its canals now buried, the medieval, modern and Este periods, the numerous transformations of the palace, the discovery of archaeological finds on site and the institutes cultural events hosted here. This last operation is part of «Open Gate, a new city gate» projectfinanced by the MiC Culture Fund, which also allowed the digital cataloging of the museum heritage and the municipal historical archive as well as the restoration of around fifty pieces (coordination by Silvia Pellegrini of the Civic Museum, created by Bit Movies, Image Tools, Sustainable Transition).
