MUSE - Museo delle Scienze

On the reclaimed ground of a former Michelin factory, Renzo Piano's luminous museum gives Trento a science institution with mountain logic: its six floors descend from a glacier summit through the Alps' nature, technology and sustainability. Opened in July 2013, MUSE is the city's modern counterpoint to its Renaissance core.

Why it matters

MUSE matters twice over: as a museum and as an urban repair. The building anchors the Le Albere district, a 116,300-square-meter redevelopment of the old Michelin industrial site between the railway and the Adige, and the museum itself earned LEED Gold certification. Institutionally it blends the traditional natural-history approach with the interactive methods of a science centre, and it acts as the hub of a territorial system that reaches up to an alpine botanical garden on Monte Bondone. The museum also serves as a design case study.

What to notice

The exhibition layout is a descent. Six floors devoted to nature, mountains, technology and sustainability begin "like water born among the glaciers" at the top and continue through transforming landscapes. Temporary shows occupy a dedicated space of more than 500 square meters, and the museum frames everything with a garden and a biotope outside, so the subject matter literally leaks into the city. Piano's luminous, sustainable envelope balances voids and solids against the surrounding blocks.

Context and history

The museum opened in July 2013 in the area of the former Michelin plant, the centrepiece of a project that Renzo Piano Building Workshop designed from the early 2000s to knit a cut-off industrial bank back into the city. The district concept — housing and commerce on the railway side, a public park sloping to the river, and two landmark anchors — placed MUSE at the northern end, with the Renaissance fortress of Palazzo delle Albere watching over the new quarter from the north. The district's residential and office buildings won recognition among the 2013 CasaClima Awards, and the museum has since positioned itself as a research-and-outreach institution with European collaborations, not only a visitor attraction.