FLORENCE.- What should a photography museum look like in the 21st century? And how can an immense historical archive be transformed into a place that feels alive, accessible and relevant to contemporary audiences?
Those questions are at the center of a new series of public conversations organized by the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia as it develops plans for the future Museo Alinari in Florence.
Titled Toward the Alinari Museum – Conversations, the program will bring together museum directors, curators, scholars, photographers and architects for five meetings at Villa Fabbricotti between October 8 and December 14, 2026.
The future museum is planned for the monumental complex of Santa Maria Novella, in spaces formerly occupied by the Scuola Marescialli. It will house the museum itself, a significant portion of the Alinari Archives and the foundation’s library.
Rather than beginning simply with exhibition design, the foundation is using the project to ask broader questions about what a museum based on a photographic archive can become. The Alinari holdings encompass an extraordinary range of photographs, documents, people, places and stories, making the challenge as much about interpretation and access as about physical space.
The series is part of the 2026 edition of the foundation’s annual News from the Alinari Archives program and is being supported by Fondazione CR Firenze.
As part of the development of the museum, the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia has also established an international advisory board intended to provide scientific and strategic guidance. Several of its members will take part in the public discussions in Florence.
The program opens on October 8 with On Photographic Archives: Materiality, Memory, Relationships. Participants include Costanza Caraffa, director of the Photothek at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut; Elizabeth Edwards, professor emerita of History of Photography at De Montfort University in Leicester; and photographer and researcher Nicola Lo Calzo of CY Cergy Paris Université, who also teaches at Sciences Po.
On October 28, the focus will shift to the changing museum experience with Rethinking Museums: Spaces, Technologies, Experiences. Speakers will include Sarah Kenderdine, professor of Museology at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Roberto Ferrari, executive director of Florence’s Museo Galileo; and exhibition architect and scenographer Lorenzo Greppi.
The November 19 conversation, Exhibiting Photography in Museums, will bring together Martin Barnes, Senior Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; Marie Robert, head of Photography and Cinema Collections at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris; and Nicoletta Leonardi, chair of the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia.
On December 3, Santa Maria Novella: A Space for Several Museums will examine the relationship between museums, language, architecture and the city. The panel will feature Giuseppe Antonelli, professor of History of the Italian Language at the University of Pavia and scientific director of the Museo Nazionale dell’Italiano; architect Giorgio Caselli, head of the Fine Arts and Palazzo Vecchio Works Department of the Municipality of Florence; and Giorgio van Straten, president of the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia.
The series concludes on December 14 with Museums and Communities, featuring Christian Greco, director of the Museo Egizio in Turin; Kathrin Schönegg, head of the Photography Department at the Münchner Stadtmuseum; and Claudia Baroncini, director of the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia.
Together, the five conversations are intended to help shape the intellectual identity of the future museum before its galleries and displays are finalized.
For the Alinari Foundation, the project is not simply about creating a permanent home for a historic photographic collection. It is also an opportunity to rethink how archives can function as spaces of research, participation and public engagement—and how one of Italy’s most important photographic legacies can speak to new generations.
All meetings will begin at 5:30 p.m. at Villa Fabbricotti, Via Vittorio Emanuele II 64, Florence. Admission is free and reservations are not required, subject to availability.
