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“We sought an architectural symphony where past, present and future are recognizable and enhanced, without ever overpowering each other.”
Michele Molè
PM23 emerges as a new cultural infrastructure in the heart of Rome, conceived to interpret the contemporary role of private cultural foundations as open platforms for production, research, and international exchange.
More than an exhibition space, the new center of the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation creates a place where art, fashion, culture, and contemporary creativity converge within a dynamic and multidisciplinary environment.
Located adjacent to the historic headquarters of Maison Valentino, the project transforms a nineteenth-century building into a new cultural institution capable of activating relationships between historical heritage, artistic production, and international audiences.
Through a balance between memory and innovation, PM23 interprets the historical stratification of Rome as a living material, creating an immersive space where architecture, content, and experience become part of a unified narrative.
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Awards & Recognitions
Cultural Foundations and New Urban Ecosystems
Contemporary cultural foundations are increasingly assuming a central role in shaping cities, evolving from exhibition institutions into places capable of generating relationships, knowledge, and new forms of public participation.
PM23 interprets this transformation through an open and flexible spatial model in which architecture and cultural programming become tools capable of activating connections between disciplines, communities, and diverse audiences.
The project does not simply create a new venue for exhibitions or events; it establishes a cultural platform designed to generate public value and a new form of urban centrality.
In this sense, PM23 redefines the relationship between foundation, city, and cultural heritage.
Cultural Regeneration Between Memory and Contemporaneity
The intervention reinterprets the historic building as a structure open to transformation and contemporary cultural production.
The classical language of the existing envelope enters into dialogue with a system of deliberately autonomous contemporary architectural elements introduced through controlled separations and visual relationships that preserve the legibility of historical memory.
The result is a layered composition in which past and present do not overlap but coexist in balance, constructing a precise and recognizable architectural identity.Architecture therefore assumes the role of a device capable of connecting time, heritage, and new cultural content.
Flexibility, Programming, and International Dimension
Exhibition Space as an Immersive Experience
Spaces are organized according to principles of adaptability and reconfigurability, allowing the venue to host exhibitions, events, research activities, educational programs, and multimedia productions.
Bookshop, ticketing with direct access from the public square, administrative spaces, and support functions integrate cultural and operational activities within a coordinated system designed to ensure efficiency and programmatic flexibility.
This structure allows the Foundation to accommodate continuously evolving cultural programs and establish itself as an international platform for art, fashion, and contemporary research.
The museographic sequence unfolds through a fluid series of immersive environments where light, materiality, and space construct a continuous narrative.
Natural light, introduced through longitudinal skylights and a large final skylight with a gull-wing section, becomes a design material capable of shaping space and continuously transforming its perception.
The V-shaped lighting structures integrated into the architecture generate dynamic atmospheres and guide the visitor experience through a spatial sequence that amplifies the relationship between artworks, content, and perception.
Architecture does not simply host cultural content; it interprets and transforms it into experience.
Technology, sustainability and method
The intervention combines restoration, architectural regeneration, and technological integration through a methodology that brings together technical precision and spatial sensitivity.
Lighting quality, environmental control, energy sustainability, and integrated building systems are conceived as parts of a unified design strategy.
Light, materiality, and space become narrative tools through which a contemporary cultural experience is constructed—one capable of enhancing artworks, content, and human relationships.
