MVRDV, in collaboration with Balance Architettura, have presented a renovation project for the GAM Contemporary Art Gallery in Turin – one of Italy’s most important museums of modern art. The concept, selected in a public competition in December 2025, restores the clarity of the 1959 building whilst introducing features characteristic of contemporary institutions: open storage areas, a flexible exhibition system and spaces designed to encourage active public participation.
GAM Torino, designed by Carlo Bassi and Goffredo Boschetti and built in 1959, was from the outset an example of modern thinking in museum architecture. The main building was positioned diagonally to the city block, ensuring even lighting throughout the day. The interiors were based on an open-plan layout, allowing for flexible exhibition design. Over the years, however, the original sense of openness was compromised – successive alterations, necessitated by safety requirements and museum standards, led to the closure of the gardens, the covering of skylights, the addition of external fire escape staircases, and the division of the space into smaller, less intelligible sections.
A return to the building’s original concept
The design by MVRDV and Balance Architettura reverses many of these changes, restoring Bassi and Boschetti’s original vision. The skylights will be reopened, and most of the internal partitions will be removed, allowing the galleries to regain their brightness and spaciousness. The external fire escape staircases will be replaced by a new internal staircase, designed to mirror the layout of the original staircases across the storeys.
The refreshed, open spaces will feature a grid of steel beams spanning between the structural columns. This will enable the suspension of display walls, curtains and exhibition modules, allowing the museum team to quickly and freely reconfigure the layout of the galleries. This solution restores the building’s former flexibility, whilst meeting contemporary curatorial needs.
A new public route
The most significant change concerns the ground floor and the basement level. The basement will be transformed into an open storage area, allowing visitors to view the entire collection as well as the institution’s operational facilities. This approach places GAM Torino within the international trend of museums making their collections fully accessible – much like the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam or the V&A East Storehouse in London.
This is what the gallery building looks like before the refurbishment:
Above the storage levels, a wide diagonal path will be created, cutting across the museum grounds and running beneath the main gallery building. Large glazed sections will let in natural light and offer a view of the underground space, whilst at night the illuminated storage areas will create a distinctive line of light. The new route will also serve as a public square – a venue for events, meetings and activities. Crucially, the diagonal passageway will become the shortest link between the centre of Turin and the Polytechnic University of Turin, as well as the exhibition spaces of OGR Torino, thereby strengthening the museum’s role in the life of the city.
A dialogue between the past and the future
“In many ways, our project returns to the ideas and optimism that accompanied the building’s construction 70 years ago,” says Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV. “We want to clear out and open up this structure, which is currently closed off. It is a dialogue between the past and the future. I hope that if Carlo Bassi and Goffredo Boschetti could see our proposal, they would be impressed by how contemporary technologies and materials allow their concepts to be developed further than was possible in the 1950s.”
The interiors will be furnished with original pieces – both restored items previously used in the gallery and those that have remained in storage over the years. This approach not only restores the building’s historical character but also reinforces the project’s environmental credentials. Additional eco-friendly measures include improving the performance of the skylights and reusing materials from demolition work.
MVRDV and Balance Architettura are responsible for the building’s renovation project, in collaboration with EP&S Group as the engineering team and Stratospherica as experts in public spaces. The project is being made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione Torino Musei and funding from Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo. Construction work is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027.
design: MVRDV
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