National Museum of Cinema in Turin

Brief information

The museum's history began with a single room in the Mole Antonelliana, where the first memorabilia and documents about Italian cinema were kept. This is important for how the place is perceived today: the museum eventually returned to the same building, but no longer as a small storeroom; rather, as a fully fledged institution, reopened here in July 2000.

In the meantime, the museum had managed to obtain a permanent home in a wing of Palazzo Chiablese: the exhibition occupied the ground floor, while the film archive and library were located above. That is why the present premises in the Mole Antonelliana are read not simply as an address, but as the result of a long search for a form suited to a collection that grew out of documents, objects, and temporary exhibitions about cinema.

What to notice right away

The source text describes visible details sparingly, so it is better to keep the focus on the arrangement of the site itself. It is worth noting three confirmed facts: the museum is located inside the Mole Antonelliana; its current premises were specially remodeled by the architect Gianfranco Gritella; the first exhibits were once housed in a single room of the same building.

These details add up to a simple principle for viewing the museum: what matters here is not only the theme of cinema, but also the way the collection has occupied the architecture. One room shows the initial scale, the remodeled premises show the later museum task, and the former Palazzo Chiablese layout, with the exhibition on the ground floor and the film archive and library above, recalls that the museum long separated display, storage, and work with materials.