Bologna Civic Museums: the need before the building

In MuseoOggi, Francesco Rodighiero describes the process Design for All Italia carried out for the Bologna Civic Museums, on which he worked directly. From listening to decisions: the role of needs in shaping the project.

November 20262-minute read

An accessibility plan is sound when every choice can be traced back to a need. Measuring a building, on its own, does not yet say what experience it should make possible.

Francesco Rodighiero worked directly on the accessibility process for the twelve sites of the Bologna Civic Museums, which the City of Bologna entrusted to the Design for All Italia association, of which he is president. In the interview by Paolo Leonini published by MuseoOggi (opens in a new tab) on 25 October 2026 (in Italian), he explains the design choices behind it.

Civic Medieval Museum, Bologna: a room with a dark coffered ceiling and terracotta floor, bronzes on tall black pedestals, stone reliefs on the walls and, in the foreground, a large bronze bust of a pope.

Understanding before prescribing

In Bologna the survey came after staff training, observation and listening. The Plan for the Elimination of Architectural Barriers is the outcome of this process of understanding.

“Here the survey was the last of the six phases, not the first. […] When we reached the survey, we already knew what to look for, and on whose behalf.” (translated from the Italian)

The order of the phases determines what the project is able to understand: websites, gallery texts and the organisation of the visit also become part of a museum’s accessibility.

The need as the unit of analysis

More than twelve hundred requirements were traced back to some four hundred distinct needs. Classifying means making relationships legible, recognising recurrences and giving reasons for priorities.

This traceability is what gives the process its rigour: every proposal remains linked to the need that generated it and to the people who express it. Without that link, a plan risks ranking interventions without explaining why they were chosen.

Plaster cast gallery of the Civic Archaeological Museum, Bologna: white plaster casts of classical statues and busts on grey plinths, under a cross vault, with a dark female statue in the centre.

One solution, many implementations

The need to stop, recover and withdraw from overstimulation runs across different sites. Rest areas can be permanent or made of movable, reversible elements, depending on the constraints of the place.

“The need is the same, the solution is one, the implementation changes.” (translated from the Italian)

This is the meta-design level: defining a response to the need, and leaving it to the design to give that response form in its context.

The responsibility of the question

The guidelines link each question to the needs that emerged and to the moment at which to address them. Their purpose is to keep alive the reasoning that precedes a decision.

“A prescription lets you stop thinking; a question does not.” (translated from the Italian)

The strength of the tool also depends on proportion: too many questions become a formality; too few impoverish the design.

Transferring this process requires a management that takes part, an internal figure able to involve communities, and an institution in which reporting a difficulty has no negative consequences. Listening becomes design knowledge when those who speak can truly do so. The broader picture is in our essay on accessibility in cultural venues.

Read the interview on MuseoOggi (in Italian)MuseoOggi (opens in a new tab)

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