Aula Studio del Macro

The Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Roma hosts two public reading areas, the first set up in the cafeteria of the new museum wing and the second in the hall of the Centro Ricerca e Documentazione Arti Visive (Visual Arts Research and Documentation Centre) in the historic wing on Via Reggio Emilia.

The dual installation, curated respectively by the Azienda Speciale PalaExpo and the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali on the instructions of the Assessorato alla Cultura, has been set up to provide the Museum with a permanent public reading service.

The two study rooms, located within an exhibition centre very popular with young people, in a territorial context rich in high schools and universities, constitute a complementary space to the nearby Biblioteca Europea and provide an incentive for the new generations to make use of the most significant Capitoline cultural institutions.

With 48 study and coworking stations, a short distance from the Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ and LUISS ‘Guido Carli’, and the Tasso, Righi, Giulio Cesare and Avogadro high schools, the new location is an important socio-cultural reference point in the Municipio Roma II, for the district's inhabitants but also for students, both resident and non-resident, who live in the neighbouring districts.

After the openings of the study rooms in Palazzo Braschi, the Centro Euclide, Montespaccato, Trionfale and La Pelanda, the MACRO's study rooms are now part of the larger project for the creation of a city network of study rooms curated by the Assessorato alla Cultura di Roma Capitale and designed to provide the city with new meeting places not just for students.

The MACRO

One of the most striking urban examples of the integration between industrial archaeology and contemporary architecture, the MACRO occupies part of a complex designed in the early twentieth century by Gustavo Giovannoni for the Peroni Brewery factories, in operation until 1971. Transferred to the Municipality of Rome in the early 1980s, the area underwent extensive renovation and restoration work to make it the seat of the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Municipal Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art), but the spaces soon proved insufficient to house the city's collection. As a result, an international competition was launched in 2000 to enlarge the museum, which was won by French architect Odile Decq. The redesigned spaces are rhythmic in their colours and materials, alternating red, black and white, iron, concrete and glazed mirrors. The multiple paths designed within them transform the visit to the museum into a personalised journey: the more than 4,000 square metres of exhibition halls, the foyer, the fiery red auditorium and the terrace are in fact connected by a series of lifts, galleries and walkways that offer visitors ever different and surprising perspectives and viewpoints on the structure and the works on display.

Photo: Roma Capitale