A special poetic of iron and stone: reflections about the design of the Montemartini Museum in Rome

Architects are used to being in relationships with museums and are accustomed to planning them and learning how to organise their specific structures. Inspiration can be found in museums, and sometimes the ideas of other architects can be emulated. The rules and solutions usually adopted for museums are based on well-established procedures, with the design contribution guiding and organising the theoretical, pedagogical and scenographic aspects of the space. An architecture is created which is specific and pervasive, and ideas should be balanced between the meaning of this architecture and the valourisation of what we want to bring onto the scene. In this paper, the resonance and vision of the Montemartini Museum in Rome will be analysed as a reference to interpret how the special poetry of this building is generated and how certain parallels can be both a choice and an opportunity in terms of the design of future museums.