[ gallery ]

MNAF - Alinari National Photography Museum

On 28 October 2006, the Alinari National Museum of Photography (MNAF) was inaugurated In the 13th century Leopoldine complex (former convent) of Piazza Santa Maria Novella, Florence. The museum takes its name from the Florentine studio of international renown, whose archive boasts one of the most important world collections of 19th century images in existence.

The MNAF is structured in 7 sections showing period pictures, instruments and artefacts.

The restoration project for the building complex was by architect Armando Biondo, the design and preparation of the interiors by architects Luigi Cupellini and Carlo Pellegrini. The staging, by Oscar-winning film director Giuseppe Tornatore, is a leap into a Night of Time lit up here and there by luminous images that float in the immense recesses of the memory, like stars and galaxies in infinite darkness: the staging solutions suggested by Tornatore and implemented by Cupellini and Pellegrini to entertain the public visiting the MNAF are based emphatically on darkness and on the magical evocation of faces, and forms, from a past waiting to be discovered.

To give these ideas full scope, the pictures are displayed against black panels, segmented at the bottom to create an effect reminiscent of the tractor holes on a roll of film, but also as a way of resolving certain functional issues. From the lighting standpoint, the designers had to focus on solutions that would guarantee visibility, generate “surprise” and favour conservation of the exhibits. In the case of the area devoted to temporary exhibitions, it was considered best to install a flexible system that would allow curators and designers to adapt their lighting plans as appropriate, given the changing nature of successive exhibitions. Accordingly, these rooms were equipped with tracks suspended from the ceiling and carrying directional Cerchio spots. The museum proper, on the other hand, was equipped with concealed Le Perroquet type fixtures incorporated directly into the gallery furniture and provided with dimmer-timer controls to optimize the intensity of the light cast onto older and more delicate exhibits, such as daguerreotypes.

For these delicate items, a setting of around 40 lux is used, whereas for most of the exhibits, 80 lux is the average. The lamps are dichroic, with light cones of varying width. In certain cases, Shuttle units are used to obtain precise and definite lighting effects.