OMA proposes modern renovation for turin's historic museo egizio

reimagining the oldest museum for ancient egyptian culture

Led by David Gianotten and Andrea Karavanas, OMA proposes a transformation of the 1824-built Museum Egizio in Turin — the world’s oldest museum for Ancient Egyptian culture. Occupying Collegio dei Nobili, the complex hosts exhibition galleries, the Academy of Sciences, and an open courtyard. As the museum has seen numerous alterations over the past two centuries, it had become enclosed and detached from the rest of the city.

This winning competition entry, titled Museo Egizio 2024, addresses the museum’s historic role as a primary civic space for Turin. The proposal introduces a new covered courtyard, ‘Piazza Egizia,’ and a series of connected urban rooms open to all, which will reintegrate the detached museum back with the city’s public spaces.

images © OMA by Alessandro Rossi

six urban rooms along a central spine

The competition entry by OMA and local firm Andrea Tabocchini Architecture proposes a reorganization of the Museo Egizio’s public areas into six distinctive ‘urban rooms.’ Each of these rooms is planned with a unique scale, function, and quality. The architects note that the largest and most central urban room is the Piazza Egizia, a public space shared between the museum and the city.

The six urban rooms are linked together by a central armature, or ‘Spine,’ which runs between both of the museum’s entrances on Via Accademia and Via Duse. The public is also invited to enter the space by way of new openings on the existing building facade on Via Duse. To visually unite these rooms, OMA develops a geometric ground floor pattern inspired by the museum’s artifacts such as the Merit’s funerary mask.

inside oma’s proposed museo egizio

The team at OMA describes the new functions of the museum proposal: ‘The Piazza Egizia is a double-level, multifunctional courtyard conceived as a palimpsest of Museum Egizio’s history. Here, the original architecture and traces of interventions over time are showcased. At level 0, the multiple historic openings of the courtyard — which had been closed since the museum’s 2010 renovation — have been restored, connecting this public space back to the city.

‘At level -1 where the Egyptian Garden and the event and learning space are located, Collegio dei Nobili’s original façade — also concealed since the 2010s — is uncovered. Two ground openings at level 0 — directly above the Egyptian Garden and the event and learning space — bring light and direct visitors to the underground.’

modern solutions for a sustainable renovation

OMA envisions a transparent canopy installed above the new Piazza Egizia. This installation would be supported by extensions of existing columns, and would shelter a tempered environment. The canopy is designed with an aluminum-clad steel structural grid and would further serve as a device for rainwater collection, ventilation, and lighting provision. This strategy proposes a solution to the museum’s ambitions for sustainability.

OMA’s design was selected among competition entries by Kengo Kuma and Associates, Pininfarina Architecture, Carlo Ratti Associati, and Snøhetta.

‘We have conceptualized the Piazza Egizia as a palimpsest that reveals the different layers of the museum’s history,’ says OMA Project Architect Andreas Karavanas, ‘This approach restores coherence to the architecture and lends the museum a lucid identity, while ensuring that the institution’s new needs are fulfilled.’

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project info:

project title: Museo Egizio 2024 | @museoegizio

architecture: OMA / David Gianotten and Andrea Karavanas | @oma.eu

location: Turin, Italy

status: competition
client: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, in collaboration with Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino (Museum of Egyptian Antiquities Foundation, Turin) and Fondazione per l’architettura / Torino (Architecture Foundation, Turin)
program: Preservation and repurposing
partner: David Gianotten
project leader: Andreas Karavanas
team: Rui Pedro Couto Fernandes, Giovanni Nembrini

local architect: Andrea Tabocchini Architecture (Andrea Tabocchini and Francesca Vittorini); T-Studio Historical consultant: Professor Andrea Longhi
visualization: Alessandro Rossi, Jeudi Wang
conservation and restoration: Studio Strati
structural engineer: Manfroni Engineering Workshop MEP and Sustainability: Sequas
lighting: Studio De Camillis — Fibbi