Green, light and spaces open to the city how the Egyptian Museum is changing

"A bicentenary is too important an event for it to be closed in a single celebration. Especially if, in turning two centuries old, it is the oldest museum institution in the world dedicated to Egyptian civilisation, second in importance only to Cairo. Therefore, taking a cue from the thoughts of Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery in London, which is also 200 years old, 2024 will be a year of events and ribbon cuttings for the Egyptian Museum of Turin. A milestone that marks an era towards which the multifaceted director Christian Greco and the entire team have been working for a decade for a museum that aspires to 1.8 million visitors a year (it has already exceeded 1 million).

Work began less than a fortnight ago on the long-awaited physical transformation of the building, which will bring "ancient Egypt back to the Egyptian Museum", as Greco explains. It is a choral effort that has united the architects of the Dutch firm Oma, which won a competition supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo, with experts from all the museum's departments, for what is a scientific and cultural, even more than architectural, reinterpretation of the space. A concept "from darkness to light", which will "bring light and give light back" to the common and exhibition spaces, change the visiting experience, leaving people free to take different and individual paths through the museum, in a fruition called "star", and return the inner courtyard of the Collegio dei Nobili to the flows of the city's daily life, with the large Egyptian square, where the temple of Ellesia, donated in 1966 by Egypt to Italy as a thank you for its participation in the rescue of property threatened by the Aswan Dam works, will be visible to all, without a ticket.

"The party has begun,' says Greco, his eyes shining. 'At the end of 2023 we opened the writing gallery, 600 square metres of hieroglyphics and ancient writings, which is a record, while to allow the work on the new gallery of the Kings, entrusted with a second competition, again to Oma, we relocated the statues in a temporary installation under the arcades of the portico, a suggestion of what happened 200 years ago, when they arrived in Turin'. The director goes on to say: "On 1 May, the funerary garden with the kitchen garden was inaugurated, a unique attempt to recreate the landscape, including cultivation, of ancient Egypt inside a museum. A roof garden placed at the apex of the hall of life, because ours is no longer a museum of mummies, but of the narration of stories of existence. Again, on 9 August, the trousseau from Nefertari's tomb, discovered by Schiapparelli in the Valley of the Kings in March 1904, will be back on display after seven years, while on 5 October it will be the turn of two new galleries of 'matter', with an encyclopaedia of wood and pigments and a large showcase-library with 6,500 vases. In November, the climax, with the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the first phase of the transformation work, in the presence of the Head of State'.

The construction site will go ahead with the museum in operation, except for a closing window from 17 June to 13 July, during which a temporary exhibition will be opened in the space and with the neighbouring Gallerie d'Italia. "The changes to the initial project were of a functional nature," say David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas, head of the Oma design team, "but all in complete harmony with the original idea. The timescale was out of the ordinary: just over a year passed from awarding to execution, and working together with the museum's experts and in the context of an ancient institution, housed in an equally delicate and stratified building, was a unique and challenging opportunity". In November, the architectural sign of the transformation will already be perceptible: the large steel and glass roof will be installed on the 1,000 square metres of the Egyptian square, the new entrances in Via Duse and Via Maria Vittoria will be opened, as well as those in Via Accademia delle Scienze and Via Principe Amedeo, which will make the façades permeable, for the first time renovated both inside and out. The Galleria dei Re (Gallery of the Kings) will also be completed, with the moulding of windows that will allow everyone to see the statues from outside and will flood the spaces with light, leaving behind the 18 years of Dante Ferretti's 'temporary' and cinematographic set-up, which contributed to the museum's fame, but does not represent Egypt, the land of sun and light. Finally, the escalator leading to the underground level will be replaced with a light and contemporary staircase, but in the summer of 2025, the Lit's immersive Egypt installation and the open-air garden, which will emerge in the courtyard above and is the result of an archaeo-botanical study, will be created. "The opening," concludes Samanta Isaia, the museum's managing director, "was truly a great collective team effort. Not only for those who worked in an operational way, but also for the economic support of 23 million euro that President Evelina Christillin managed to put together thanks to donations and sponsorships coming from the Mic and from Italian companies and economic groups. Egypt will return to the Egyptian Museum and the spin-offs for the city will be significant'.