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Rome’s Galleria Borghese is getting too popular for its own good. The 17th-century villa museum has launched an architectural competition for an extension, reports Le Figaro.
The decision is a result of an influx of tourists. Each year, the museum has 700,000 visitors, 60 percent of which are international. The museum houses paintings, sculptures, and antiquities from works by Bernini and Caravaggio to Canova and Raphael.
“Until now, we have had to cap daily attendance at 2,000 people, allowing entry only to those who have booked online,” Francesca Cappelletti, the museum’s director, told the French newspaper. “Yet, every day, we see groups of international visitors in the park who are disappointed to find they cannot enter because there are no spots left.”
The new extension is being created with support from Rome’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the municipality. It estimated to cost $11.15 million (€10 million). The space will span 3,000 square meters and will help the museum exhibit work that’s sitting in storage, as well as stage exhibitions, open a restaurant or bookstore, and a laboratory. “We cannot alter the existing heritage; the solution must involve a contemporary structure. After all, look at the Louvre pyramid in France—it works perfectly,” said Cappelletti in regard to the extension. The structure is meant to blend in with the villa’s distinct white style and surrounding park.
The competition for the extension is being organized by the Italian engineering firm Proger Spa, also a patron of the museum. The deadline for candidates to express their interest in the competition is November 13. “Naturally, it is not the company, but rather a jury of independent experts and renowned international figures that will select the winner in mid-May 2027. We have no intention of relinquishing our role; the final decision rests with us. That said, every effort must be made to ensure that Italian public funds remain protected,” said Cappelletti.
But not everyone is a fan of the plan. “It is a grotesque proposal. It is blasphemy,” Alix van Buren, president of the Friends of the Villa Borghese association, told the Times of London. “The villa is one of the most perfect, unalterable artistic ecosystems that human genius has ever created. Not a single pin can be moved without upsetting the balance.”
Michele Campisi, the general secretary of the Italia Nostra heritage group, joined in on the fury, calling the plans “bizarre” and arguing that the museum is trying to compete for popularity with the Colosseum. Tomaso Montanari, an art history professor at the Universita per Stranieri di Siena, described the extension as “moronic” in the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, adding that it was like “building an extension on Brunelleschi’s dome” at Florence Cathedral.
Fabio Rampelli, the vice-president of Italy’s lower house of parliament and a key ally of Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, called for Cappelletti to resign in a Facebook post. “Treating a space like this as if it were your own back garden is dismal,” he said.