In Rome, for the first time since it was built in the 1930s, the Historical and Cultural Institute of the Corps of Engineers reopens to the public, taking on a new look and a new name: the Museum of Engineering. The monumental building, over 4,000 square meters overlooking the Lungotevere della Vittoria, becomes a major cultural center, a place open to the city where history, technology, art and innovation meet. From Oct. 31, 2025 to Feb. 15, 2026, the museum will inaugurate its new season with two exhibitions of international appeal: “Vivian Maier. The Exhibition,” dedicated to the American photographer whose centenary falls, and “Pop Air. Ugo Nespolo,” a national premiere of the famous Piedmontese artist’s impressive inflatable sculptures.
The project is a collaboration between the Defense Ministry, the Italian Army, Defense Services and Arthemisia, with the patronage of the Lazio Region. It is a cultural initiative that is part of the strategy for the enhancement of military museums launched in 2016 by Difesa Servizi, an in-house company of the Ministry of Defense. Today the complex, renovated and permanently reopened to the public, is proposed as a new space of Roman culture, accessible to families, students, scholars and international visitors.
The name “Museo del Genio” is intended to directly communicate the identity of a place that goes beyond the traditional concept of a museum. In fact, the full name, Historical and Cultural Institute of the Corps of Engineers (ISCAG), reveals a unique structure in the national panorama: a center that combines museum, library, historical and photographic archives, research and memory laboratory. After years of limited access, this heritage is once again accessible, offering citizens an experience that interweaves technical knowledge and beauty, science and creativity, past and future.
The Museum of Genius exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the inventions and discoveries that have marked Italian history in the fields of engineering, communications, and flight. Each room recounts intelligence as a transformative force, capable of generating progress. Among the most significant pieces is Guglielmo Marconi’s original radiotelegraphic equipment, with which the inventor, a captain in the Engineer Corps, made the communications revolution possible. Next to it, a small display case holds one of Antonio Meucci’s very first telephones, flanked by later field models and early military switchboards, concrete evidence of Italian technological evolution.
The objects on display, from bridge models to the instrumentation of the specialties of the Engineer Corps - pioneers, spoilers, railroaders - reveal an exceptional combination of functionality and aesthetic refinement. Each piece, even the most technical, tells of a tradition in which scientific research dialogues with art, in a typically Italian balance between ingenuity and beauty.
Opening this new cultural phase are two temporary exhibitions that represent the perfect encounter between historical memory and contemporary creativity. The first is “Vivian Maier. The Exhibition,” curated by Anne Morin, leading international expert on the artist. The exhibition, produced by Arthemisia from a project by Vertigo Syndrome in collaboration with diChroma photography, features more than 200 of the most famous photographs of the American photographer, a world icon of street photography, discovered only after her death. Her intimate and poetic images portray 20th century urban life with a discreet and very human gaze, capable of capturing the dignity and beauty of the everyday.
Alongside the American photographer, the Genius Museum is hosting “Pop Air. Ugo Nespolo,” a never-before-seen project presented as a world premiere. The Piedmontese master’s huge inflatable sculptures reinterpret the great masterpieces of art history in an ironic way, offering a visual and playful experience that transforms the monumental spaces of the museum into a pop stage. With this exhibition, Nespolo reaffirms his ability to move between different styles and languages, blending tradition and experimentation, high art and mass culture, in a dialogue that renews sculpture with lightness and intelligence.
The two exhibitions, as distant in language as they are complementary, mark the Genius Museum’s vocation to become a place where history meets the present and knowledge joins emotion.
The building that houses the museum boasts a prestigious history. Founded in the early 1900s as the Museum of Italian Military Engineering, the Institute found its final home between 1936 and 1939, when the monumental complex on the Lungotevere della Vittoria was built to a design by Lieutenant Colonel Gennaro De Matteis. The architecture, between rationalism and simplified neoclassicism, is distinguished by its compositional rigor, the skillful use of travertine and bricks, and the dramatic entrance exedra flanked by fortified towers. It is considered one of the most significant examples of 20th-century Italian institutional architecture.
Inside, the Institute preserves a vast documentary and technical heritage: more than 24,000 volumes, 30,000 historical photographs, 20,000 iconographies and 150,000 documents that tell centuries of Italian military and scientific history. The materials on display illustrate the evolution of the means of transmission, from the fire signals of antiquity to the use of carrier pigeons, from telegraphs to the first radios.
The museum tour, divided into several sections, offers a richly evocative itinerary. The Hall of Colonies and Military Architecture displays scale models of fortifications and constructions built by the Army Corps of Engineers, including the “Spaccamela” decomposable sheet metal fort, an example of modular and rapid-installation architecture. The Hall of Photography, Transmissions and Photoelectricity collects instruments and apparatus of great technical value, true ante litteram installations that reveal how the response to human needs has been able to combine functionality and design. Finally, the Aeronautics and Railroaders Room documents the birth of the Italian Air Force, originally part of the specialties of the Engineer Corps, through models and artifacts that recount the pioneering phase of flight and the technical innovations that made Italy a protagonist in this sector.
The visit is completed by rooms dedicated to the Reggimento Genio Ferrovieri, one of the Italian Army’s departments of excellence, illustrating materials and equipment used for major infrastructure and logistics works.
The opening of the Engineer Museum thus marks a turning point in the enhancement of Italy’s cultural and technical heritage. In addition to preserving the memory of the past, the new center aims to be a dynamic space for discussion, research and dissemination. The exhibitions dedicated to Vivian Maier and Ugo Nespolo represent its emblem: two artists capable of looking at the world with different eyes, both guided by an idea of creativity as freedom and curiosity.
The project is realized with the support of Fondazione Terzo Pilastro Internazionale and Poema, with Generali Italia as sponsor through the Generali Valore Cultura program, Frecciarossa as mobility partner and La Repubblica as media partner.
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| Rome, Army Corps of Engineers Museum reborn, reopened after decades: becomes a new cultural hub |
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