The Museo delle Culture project originated in the 1990s when the Municipality of Milan purchased the former Ansaldo industrial area for cultural activities. The disused factories, real monuments of industrial archaeology, were transformed into laboratories, studios and new creative spaces. In this scenario, the City of Milan is planning a multidisciplinary centre dedicated to the different testimonies and cultures of the world, the exhibition venue of the Civic Ethnographic Collections. As already mentioned, Mudec was born from an industrial archaeology recovery operation in the Tortona area and is a meeting place for cultures and communities. Inside the building there are various spaces that offer visitors and the city a variety of cultural proposals and services, spread over 17,000 square meters. The exhibition area of the Museum, on the first floor, develops around a large central covered square and hosts the section of the museum itinerary with the works of the permanent collection and the rooms dedicated to the large temporary exhibitions.
The auditorium, a three hundred seat theatre dedicated to performances and visual arts, completes the space. The ground floor, destined for reception, has a bistro, a design store, a ticket office, a cloakroom, a Forum of Cultures room, a conference room, a multipurpose space, a space for teaching, a restoration laboratory and storerooms set up for visits by small accompanied groups. Finally, the MUDEC Lab is a space entirely dedicated to children, which offers guided tours and fun thematic workshops related to the museum and the current exhibitions.
