MUSE identity
Passion, collaboration, diversity, well-being, creativity, dialogue
We investigate nature, share science, and inspire society for sustainable development.
To interpret nature, starting with the mountain landscape, using the eyes, tools and questions of scientific research, picking up contemporary challenges and enjoying the pleasure of knowledge, to lend value to discovery, innovation, and sustainability.
Diversity, collaboration, creativity, responsibility, dialogue, and passion are the values that permeate the actions of the MUSE for the wellbeing of people. Curiosity, fascination, and enjoyment are the qualities that characterise all the museum’s actions.
Faithful to its vision and mission, the MUSE is constantly experimenting with new ways to enhance its collections, knowledge and skills, to present them to an increasingly diversified global contemporary public.
To this end, the museum embraces the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030 and adopts them as the focus for its strategy to narrate and present a journey into the actuality of life on planet Earth in order to appreciate the uniqueness of nature and the relationships with cultural landscapes and the environment, and to imagine and participate in the adoption of intelligent and creative solutions for improving society.
When science smiles at you
A museum that follows the contours of the surrounding mountains. Six floors of pure wonder dedicated to Alpine nature, the origin of life, innovation, and sustainability in Renzo Piano’s luminous, eco-sustainable architecture.
The web of stories between nature and science, past and future, art and sustainable development combines the traditional approach of natural history museums with the new interaction methods of the most modern science centres and interweaves experimentation, discovery and play.
The MUSE is a must-visit for experimenting knowledge: a unique experience, suitable for people of any age, at any time of year. The general public is the real main player and animator of the museum’s exhibits: from the scientific collections to the educational workshops, multimedia exhibits, interactive games, exhibitions and events, everyone here, according to their interests and aptitudes, can build their own vision of the world and feel part of contemporary scientific debate.
The MUSE fulfils the legacy of the Tridentine Museum of Natural Sciences, established in 1964 but with roots that date back much further to the ancient collections of notables in Trentino at the end of the eighteenth century.
In 1982, the museum moved to Palazzo Sardagna in the centre of the city of Trento, but this location soon proved to be too small. Over the years, the museum became an ever-widening network in the Trentino region, where it managed its own sites, located in places of great natural and touristic interest. At the beginning of the 2000s, the conditions were created for a change in space and perspective: the time was right for the MUSE project.
The first and most important steps in this direction were the “Feasibility Study for a new Science Museum in Trentino” and the subsequent Cultural Plan drawn up with citizens and the contribution of 50 qualified national and international experts. The Cultural Plan became the architectural project entrusted to Renzo Piano, who designed the building and took over artistic direction of the interior design.
The MUSE saw the light in 2013. On 27 July of that year, the museum opened to the public with a 24-hour event that attracted the attention of more than 30,000 people.
