Accessible museums:
Civic Museums of Bologna
A complex museum system becomes truly inclusive when accessibility is understood as a strategic framework for design, cultural responsibility, governance and public engagement.
Within the programme developed by Design for All Italia for the Civic Museums of Bologna, Rodighiero.Design for All contributed to the methodological and design construction of the Design for All process, with a specific focus on needs assessment, synthesis of the data collected, definition of design criteria, meta-design solutions, operational guidelines and tools for the accessible and inclusive evolution of the museum system.
In collaboration with:
Design for All Italia, Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Arch. Michele Marchi, Pete Kercher, Alessia Planeta, Claudio Cervelli, Studio Total Tool
Making a museum accessible does not simply mean removing physical barriers, adding interpretive panels or introducing special devices into an experience that has already been defined. It means questioning the entire system: how people arrive, orient themselves, understand, choose, pause, move through spaces, encounter works, read content and build a lasting memory of the visitor experience.
In complex museum systems, isolated interventions often produce partial improvements that are costly, fragmented and difficult to coordinate. Real value emerges when museum accessibility, narrative, exhibition design, communication, comfort, management and staff training are understood as interdependent dimensions of one coherent cultural experience.
An accessible museum is not a simplified museum
Accessibility is not a separate layer of the project. It’s the way the project becomes more strategic, more intelligible and more capable of expanding and engaging its audiences.
12 museum sites considered as part of a single cultural ecosystem.
More than 10 Co-Design workshops with museum professionals, stakeholders and people involved in the process.
More than 150 participants engaged in the listening and dialogue process.
More than 400 needs and requirements collected, analysed and translated into design criteria.
More than 15 main documents and technical annexes, developed to guide future transformations.
A museum system, not a single building
The work on the Civic Museums of Bologna addressed an extensive and heterogeneous cultural system, among the most complex within the Italian museum landscape: different sites, different collections, diverse spatial conditions, multiple audiences, and historical, managerial and organizational constraints that could not be reduced to a single solution.
Within this context, the Design for All approach made it possible to move beyond an episodic understanding of accessibility and to build a coherent museum accessibility strategy: a framework capable of connecting people’s needs, site-specific critical issues, intervention priorities and real opportunities for transformation.
Complexity was not simplified: it was structured, made legible and translated into working criteria.
A multidisciplinary team
Rodighiero.Design for All contributed, within the project coordinated by Design for All Italia, to transforming the data gathered through training, listening activities, site visits and Co-Design into a structured system of design criteria, meta-design solutions and operational recommendations.
The work focused above all on reading the complexity that emerged and translating it into usable instruments: not a catalogue of critical issues, but a design framework capable of informing decisions, priorities, investments and subsequent development phases
Needs assessment and interpretation, transforming qualitative and quantitative data into design knowledge.
Synthesis of physical, sensory, cognitive, informational and organizational critical issues, understood as parts of a single experiential system.
Definition of design criteria, to guide future transformations without reducing them to standard solutions.
Development of meta-design solutions, as a strategic basis for interventions, concepts, guidelines and operational tools.
Contribution to the development of the Project Guidelines, conceived as a critical and operational framework to support future decision-making.
Exemplary concepts developed by the Department of Architecture of the University of Ferrara within the project for the Civic Museums of Bologna. The images provide a visual translation of some of the meta-design solutions developed by Rodighiero.Design for All within the process coordinated by Design for All Italia.
Higher quality of the visit, because orientation, communication, comfort and accessibility become part of the same visitor experience.
Broader and more engaged audiences, not through simplification, but through greater usability, autonomy and confidence.
More coherent investments, because priorities do not arise from isolated urgencies, but from a systemic understanding of the museum experience.
Greater institutional authority, because inclusion becomes a visible, verifiable and culturally meaningful commitment.
Reusable tools over time, capable of guiding tenders, appointments, progressive interventions, staff training and monitoring.
Why this process creates value
An accessible museum does not merely improve its level of compliance. It increases its capacity to be understood, explored, remembered and chosen. It enhances the quality of the visitor experience for diverse audiences, reduces the fragmentation of interventions, clarifies priorities and makes it possible to turn limited resources into more coherent actions.
For a cultural institution, this means building a decision-making asset: defining priorities, directing resources and transforming isolated interventions into a progressive and coherent museum accessibility strategy.
