The Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, owner of the property in question, intends to create an important and significant "cultural center of the city" through a building redevelopment, redevelopment and restoration, creating a complex place of great interest, able to connect physically with the adjacent areas not only from the urban and architectural, but also social and anthropological.
The building complex of eighteenth-century origin occupies an entire block in the historic center of Modena; the area is located at the western edge of Via Emilia and cuts in two the historic center of Modena, in proximity of the avenues that surround the center and therefore in a place of border between the historical center proper and the urban fabric twentieth century. The block is also characterized by easy access by public and private transport and by the proximity to the Palazzo dei Musei (also of eighteenth-century origin overlooking Largo S. Agostino), by the Faculty of Economics and Commerce (Foro Boario)from the "Marco Biagi" University Foundation to the large underground car park currently being built in the Novi Sad park.
The project is the natural consequence of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in November 2007 between the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Municipality of Modena and Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena. The protocol identifies as central the transfer, in the new renovated spaces, the Estense Library and the Civic Library of Art Poletti, which will have an extraordinary opportunity to relaunch through the solution of the current problem of shortage of space. The document provides that the library and the exhibition center will have to be located mainly within the monumental part, whereas the language centre and the internationalisation centre must necessarily be located in the part currently owned by the state.
In addition to these spaces will be placed in the complex also the Center for Photography and Image, commercial spaces, guest quarters, side services and common use. Excluded from the project are the "Ex Farmacia" spaces, located in the south-east corner of the complex, which will be restored under the direct supervision of the Regional Superintendence for Architectural Heritage.
Within the complex, four homogeneous areas of intervention have been defined, which also constitute successive phases of growth of the building and which may be the subject of intervention in successive phases staggered over time, in order to allow the continuity of the cultural activities already started within some areas of the complex:
Monumental area Tenaglie (East facing via Emilia)
Ex Ospedale Militare monumental area (facing West on via Emilia)
Non-murgical zone (North Front)
State-owned area in use at the University (facing West on Via Berengario)
