Coffee museums in Italy: the Nuvola Lavazza

A way to experience first-hand and touch the experience that this drink brings with it since its discovery and diffusion. This is how coffee museums could be defined, structures dedicated to coffee machines, to the coffee makers that have marked certain eras, but also stories of families who have left a mark on the history of coffee.

A preface that immediately brings to mind the Lavazza family who with its Nuvola in Turin has now become a point of reference for enthusiasts and connoisseurs of the sector. The Nuvola Lavazza is the company's headquarters and also has a bistro, an archaeological site, a garden square and a museum. Designed by Cino Zucchi, it is a true incubator of art and design.

A restaurant that bears the signature of Dante Ferretti for the scenography and Ferran Adrià for the cuisine and a business center designed to encourage sharing in a purely modern style with sinuous shapes.

The museum inside is a sensory experience with a high technological impact. The itinerary was designed by the studio of Ralph Appelbaum wanting to maintain the focus on the interactivity of the visit.

Sensors, projections and installations to learn about the history of the family, of the production of coffee and of all the famous collaborations that Lavazza has established on an artistic and design level. All this is made possible by the Radio Frequency Identification technology with which visitors equipped with a special intelligent cup can activate the multimedia contents of the museum.

Museum complexes in Italy are the work of historic families

While abroad there are examples of museums dedicated to coffee free from corporate constraints, in Italy the hegemony unquestionably belongs to the families who have always been linked to this world. Just think of the MUMAC in Binasco (Milan), the Museum of the Coffee Machine by Cimbali.

A project by engineer Valerio Cometti and architect Paolo Balzanelli built around coffee machines, but without depriving itself of its intrinsic identity. The structure is sinuous "like the embrace of the aroma of hot coffee poured into a cup", say the designers.

The external colors recall those of the brand with the classic Rosso Cimbali dominating the facade. The focal point of the museum route is the machines, which is why the lighting is designed to give maximum emphasis to what is a fundamental part of the history of Italian industrial design.

The Dersut Coffee Museum is of a different nature. The Conegliano company has chosen the path of authenticity by offering its own exhibition space inside the historic building to highlight that industrial archaeology that starts from the cup and reaches the structure itself.

Along the route you can also come across an air-conditioned greenhouse and the first example of a steam espresso machine in history. A unique piece, La Pavoni, dating back to 1905 and today at the center of the visit of this building that was once a silkworm farm and is now a permanent exhibition.

How coffee is experienced in the world

The cultural side of coffee in the world has a different approach than what we are used to seeing in Italy. Beyond its value within society and the community, the way of celebrating it and preserving its historical memory in museums also varies. Abroad, coffee is a national symbol, not just a corporate one.

The case of the World Coffee Museum in Buon Ma Thuot in Vietnam bears witness to this theory. Although commissioned by a local multinational, in its 10,000 square meters of exhibition space it brings to life the history of the entire nation linked to coffee. The first curator Chiara Isadora Artico says she wants to "tell the origins of coffee as a fundamental stage in human growth".

The architecture is a dive into local tradition with galleries that recall the homes of the Ede ethnic group in stone and sloping straw roofs. From the aerial view you can see the sinuous shapes of the buildings that have the characteristic “touch points” necessary for internal connections. Today it is a Vietnamese symbol both from an architectural and cultural point of view.

A trip to Brazil is a must, to Santos, to cite a splendid example of conservative architecture with the Museo do Café. A building designed in 1920 by Jules Mosbeux and Ernest Chaneux, with a predominantly Italian workforce, which had the task of recording the exchanges and classifications related to the world of coffee from the beginning.

The style reflects the eclecticism of the time and the spaces have not been modified to adapt to the museum needs, but rather dialogue with them by accompanying the visitor on the three floors used for temporary and permanent exhibitions. The world of coffee also helps to break down barriers.

This is demonstrated by the twinning that the Museo do Cafè itself has undertaken with the MUMAC in Binasco and with the new Coffee Museum in Dubai, all explicit cases in which design goes beyond the bean.