The project of the Museum of Cultures originated in the 1990s when the Municipality of Milan bought the former industrial area of Ansaldo to use it for cultural activities. The disused factories, real monuments of industrial archaeology, were transformed into laboratories, studios and new creative spaces. In this scenario, the Municipality of Milan plans a multidisciplinary centre dedicated to the different testimonies and cultures of the world, the exhibition centre of the civic Ethnographic Collections.
The Museum of Cultures, conceived in a socio-economic context very different from the current one, had to be rethought in the light of a complexity perhaps unimaginable in the late nineties.
The intercultural vocation that inspired it finds its expression today in a project capable of responding to the call, over the years increasingly participatory, of the cultural public in a panorama that is constantly changing for museum institutions, their sustainability and their identity between scientific research, historical testimony, interpretation of the contemporary and vision of the future. Visitors to the Museum of Cultures will be able to visit major international exhibitions in different artistic languages, learn about the ethno-anthropological heritage of the collections of the City of Milan composed of over 7000 works of art, objects of use, textiles and musical instruments from all continents, participate in a program of events and initiatives organized by international communities in the area.
