Former Church of San Barbaziano in Bologna opens to the public after restoration by Studio Poggioli

TheFormer Church of San Barbaziano in Bologna, undergoing conservation restoration by Studio Poggioli, will be exceptionally open to the public from April 1 to 3, 2026. The initiative is part of the program Out & About. Discovering architecture, sponsored by Creative Europe, the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, and Guiding Architects, which includes architectural tours and events in more than thirty European locations. The restoration project, entitled The Time Project, was selected as one of the forty best entries out of 410 nominations for theEUmies Awards 2026, one of the leading international contemporary architecture awards.

The work represents one of two Italian projects included in the shortlist, drawing attention to the theme of regeneration of historic heritage through a contemporary approach. Open days will offer free guided tours, allowing visitors to explore the restored spaces and understand the design strategies adopted by Studio Poggioli. Access requires registration via Eventbrite.

"With The Time Project we did not want to restore an ideal image of the past, but to restore spatial clarity to a deeply transformed structure," explains Federico Poggioli. “Selection to the EUmies Awards 2026 recognizes an approach that considers restoration as a contemporary act: not imitation, but precision, measure, and responsibility to history. The Open days will be an opportunity to share this process with the city.”

The building that houses the Former Church of San Barbaziano was designed by Pietro Fiorini in 1608 and has undergone multiple transformations and misuses over the centuries, including straw and hay storage, military warehouse, machine shop and garage. The restoration, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and completed in 2024, returned a forgotten space to the city while preserving its layered complexity. The building’s future includes cultural activities, enhancing the relevance of architectural practices that critically address the adaptive reuse of Europe’s built heritage.

Studio Poggioli’s intervention is characterized by a calibrated approach between subtraction and reintegration of contemporary elements. The new large windows, with linear and essential fixtures, recall the different industrial and civil uses that succeeded the religious one. The materials chosen, corten and burnished brass, evoke the phenomenon of the action of time on matter, dialoguing with the brick and sandstone present in the building. The burnishes reinterpret the chromatic shades generated by time on the interior walls. The large glazed portal introduces the interior, characterized by light and shadow that tell the building’s multiple metamorphoses. The pre-existing decorations have been consolidated without restoring the original chromatics, allowing the former church to present itself as a unique work in which the signs of time become an integral part of the spatial experience. The secondary entrance also takes on a prominent role: a monolithic burnished brass portal with steps seemingly emerging from the ground and grab bars integrating hidden lighting emphasizes the contrast between bright lines and irregular surfaces. The restoration work highlights the poetics of urbanruin, emphasizing the firm’s subtractive approach, which seeks essentiality as fullness of meaning.

Selection for the EUmies Awards 2026 will grant the project international visibility. The intervention will be included in the award’s official traveling exhibition, which will open in May 2026 at the Fundació Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona and continue to Vienna, Milan, Prague, Brussels, and other European capitals, with a subsequent tour to South America. In addition, the exhibition is estimated to reach more than 300,000 visitors.

Former Church of San Barbaziano in Bologna opens to the public after restoration by Studio Poggioli

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