MDR - MUSEO DEL RISPARMIO (the Savings Museum) | Migliore + Servetto Architects

The 24th May, 2012 was the opening date of the first Savings Museum in Europe, of which Migliore+Servetto Architects studio has developed the permanent exhibition project. The museum is located in the center of Torino, and was made possible thanks to the initiative of Intesa SanPaolo. The museum covers a surface of 600 sm, at via San Francesco d’Assisi 8/A, inside the building that, in 1519, hosted the first city Monte di Pietà (Pawnshop) and is now a unique place in the world for its themes and its exhibition concept able to draw the public towards a complex subject in an innovative and interactive way. The need of organizing a clear and direct exhibition of complex contents addressed to different kinds of public (from kids to teenagers, up to adults), has led to the creation of different environments designed to give the visitors several kinds of experiences and activities able to draw the attention of the visitors and to make them become the actors/protagonists. The exhibition structures are diversified and flexible and allow, both singles and groups, to go deeper into the contents and memorize them, building a personalized path of discovery, one can come back to, even in different times and places. The museum, conceived as an ever-evolving dynamic tool, is divided into five thematic rooms organized as follows: “Know” – two different speeds and reading levels expressed in two specific exhibition systems: on the graphic walls, short videos and mono-headsets posts invite the visitors to direct themselves to the islands in the center of the room, as a sort of transit cableway, where exploring history and its contents. “Learn” – in order to face the complexity of the themes, the interaction starts from the use of interactive charts that interview the “technological oracles” in order to find the possible answers. A dynamic landscape of images and information, divided into three thematic areas, guided by the choices and curiosities of the visitors. “Tell” – flipping through the pages of historical-literary books the space reveals the virtual full size characters that draw the visitors in their narration, in a game of reflections, lights and interactive images. “Dream” – an ideal movie theatre first raw where, sitting in comfortable sound seats, the visitors can watch the chosen selection among the pulsing images shown around the space at 180 degrees. “Experiment” – an experience lab that associates the potential of applications and games software to physical tools and interactive objects to test one’s own knowledge and managing skills.