The New York Times he defined it as one of the fifty museums to visit at least once in a lifetime. Two million people have already followed the advice, from Italy and the world. Its permanent galleries and temporary exhibitions of international level – which tell the story of the car and that of the twentieth century together – have hit the mark.
So it could be summed up, attempting a synthesis, the ten-year milestone of the new National Auto Museum in Turin, reopened in March 2011 and celebrated with a beautiful conference on the Web by managers of today and yesterday, architects and creatives, politicians and founders. The celebrations were obviously planned live, but we had to adapt. Honors, however, for a museum that has no equal in Europe, where even the richest and most famous institutions often have the aftertaste of the garage. Shiny, immense, but in the end a bit boring. Especially in the eyes of those who no longer live in a car. Young people, families, non-experts, the flow of visitors from the major tourist circuits, which today justifies the existence of the modern museum.
The garage effect, Franois Confino said very well – author of the museum itinerary – was the first thing that the new MAUTO swept away in 2011. I saw the other car museums as collections of dead, immobile bodies. I tried to give life and mobility, even theatrical, a little os, if you like, to continue with the dream. The scenographic ideas, the use of animated images and documentaries, also taken up in the many monographic exhibitions, make the MAUTO a fun, surprising museum that continues to evolve even after many years. This is not trivial, especially in times of hardship.
Cino Zucchi, the architect who had the difficult task to double the exhibition area by defending at least the most beautiful things in the building (work of 1959 by Amedeo Albertini), he recalled how the idea of the glass skin was born which, a bit like a bodywork, covers a large part of the frame of the old building. And then the reinvention of the courtyards, which once covered amplify, spectacularize and keep the whole together. Together with the creatives, the managers: Carlo Zunino at the time president, and Rodolfo Gaffino, director and pivot of the reopening. Not trivial to carry out with a budget of one thousand euros per square meter: a tenth of operations such as the MAXI in Rome.
Zunino defined the museum that he inherited at the end of the 90s, a sleeping beauty, with many wrinkles of time and little desire to win over new visitors. Gaffino did not hide a few moments of misunderstanding with the creative team, which according to him pushed a bit to extremes. But also recognized the genius of Confino’s approach (according to which two Greek vases on display are masterpieces, twenty become a warehouse) and of Zucchi’s style, who was able to add and modernize without degrading the past. A look to the future, a search for novelty that the public demands.
Benedetto Camerana, president since 2012 onwards and Mariella Mengozzi, director since 2017, seem committed in unison. They recalled the new additions, from the virtual rooms dedicated to the founder, Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia, to the complete renovation of the new space for temporary, which this year will welcome Pininfarina’s 90 (+1) years, and, in the autumn, two interesting tributes to the centenary of Giovanni Michelotti and the roaring years of uphill racing (Those daredevils on the dirt roads). For the summer, on the other hand, an exhibition is planned on Pio Manz, the eclectic designer of the Ulm school, who designed the Fiat 127 half a century ago.
Not a small program, after a year to forget and another that, so far, has retraced the traumas. The pandemic has dramatically affected the world of culture, has forced museums to communicate at a distance, to become even more virtual and widespread. In the last ten years, MAUTO has built important international partnerships with the main European collections; his cars – mostly in working order – are now leaving the museum, traveling the streets of the world, taking part in the most celebrated rallies and races (from London-Brighton to the Mille Miglia). This is also a way of resisting.
March 19, 2021 (change March 19, 2021 | 18:51)
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