MEIS building site: Museum in progress

Work is underway in Ferrara on the construction of a majestic architectural complex to house the MEIS, a major museum designed to educate visitors about the history, ideas and culture of Italian Judaism, commissioned by the Ministry for Cultural Assets and Activities and coordinated by the Fondazione MEIS.

This is one of the biggest museum development projects currently underway in Italy. It involves the restoration of a former prison and the construction of new buildings, in keeping with an innovative protocol designed to certify the environmental sustainability of the complex throughout its life. The building site is attracting attention from local people, the museum sector, building professionals and the international Jewish community.

It’s not everyday that the creation of a new museum is planned on the basis of the building that will house it. In the case of the MEIS, architecture and contents merge in an ambitious project that, given the figures involved and its potential, provides the Ministry for Cultural Assets and Activities with a unique opportunity for interacting with the public from as early as the construction phase.

BAM! drew up a communication and promotion strategy for the building site, paying particular attention to the many different target groups with a potential interest in the subject: from professionals in the sector to local people, tourists, children and students of all ages, who are already offered the chance to go on guided tours of the site.

The starting point for this strategy was the creation of a specific identity for telling the story of the site, borrowoed from a partial rebreanding of the museum identity. This led to a new version of the MEIS logo and a dedicated tagline: Museum in progress.

Online communication primarily took the form of a website combining content for those in the trade with educational material, texts, videos, technical details and photographs to guide people around the large building site and help them to picture the museum that would take shape there.

The strategy also catered for relations with visitors to the museum, already partly open to the public: phases, building functions, project description, and the contextualisation of the MEIS as regards Jewish Ferrara, all illustrated in a series of panels around the 100-metre-long building site fence.

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