As Museo Egizio in Turin celebrates its bicentenary anniversary, the international architecture firm OMA has been granted the honor of renovating Italy's famous archaeological museum. The recently unveiled Gallery of Kings designed by David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas of OMA in collaboration with Andrea Tabocchini Architecture is among the first segments of the complex to be renovated.
Housing a collection of ancient Egyptian statues from Thebes, modern-day Luxor, the new space replaces the original black box gallery designed in 2006 by scenographer Dante Ferretti. OMA's Gallery of Kings guides visitors through the general blueprint of an ancient Egyptian temple, first greeting guests with two mirrored sphinxes at the center accompanied by statues of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet. A statue of Seti II, whose original place was at the old Temple of Karnak, is at the pinnacle of the gallery positioned at the end of the hall.
However, the most striking aspect of the revitalized space is the soft reflective quality of the aluminum walls, imbuing the space with a feeling of simultaneous majesty and modernity. This blank reflective interior is perhaps more fitting to the original context of the statues than the 17th-century structure that houses the museum, pictorial negative space, and absence of vanishing points characteristic of ancient Egyptian art. In another sense, the light-radiating properties of the chrome walls call back to the abundance of natural light in the original temple.
The full renovation of Museo Egizio is set for finalization by 2025. Take a look at the photos above for a glimpse at the newly unveiled Gallery of Kings.
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