The museum and its collection The vast exhibition activity organized and presented at the Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci from 1988 to the present, which has raised Prato to the level of the most important national and international museums, reflects a model based on displaying temporary events of great interest in rapid succession. This concept of the museum as an "exhibition building" has now been superseded by the idea that its "foundation and reason for being" lies instead in the presence of a wealth of art works collected and continuously enriched, forming the main corpus and the true scope of the museum's activity. In recent years the wealth of works collected, in constant expansion, has stimulated serious reflection on the centrality of the collection and on fundamental activities such as its cataloguing and conservation, as a permanent adjunct to the organization and presentation of temporary exhibitions. The final refurbishment of the technical areas on the basement level and the upgrading of the exhibition space dedicated to the collection, deemed necessary developments in the modernizing process carried out in the last few years, have led the museum's management to envisage a project for enlarging the existing building. Within this context, the Pecci family has concretely proposed the implementation of this plan, commissioning the project from Maurice Nio, one of the most interesting figures on the innovative architectural scene in the Netherlands. With this initiative the Pecci family has renewed the cultural challenge proposed to the city over twenty years ago, favourably accepted this time too by the Commune of Prato, which is promoting and sponsoring the new construction jointly with the Region of Tuscany. The continuous exhibition of a conspicuous part of the collection and the relevant collocation of works in storage will serve to consolidate the recently recognized identity of the Centro as a "Contemporary Art Museum" of regional interest, and to reaffirm its character of excellence in the national and international art world.
	The expansion project The project for expanding the museum's facilities meets the basic requisites of doubling the available exhibition space; allowing an ample presentation of the museum's permanent collection; providing for division of the space and alternation of the exhibition projects; identifying a single central entrance, to facilitate the circulation of visitors in the building and to make accessible, and thus more closely integrated with the life of the city, the services of welcoming, education, restoration and commercial sales that now form integral parts of a contemporary museum's cultural offer. The project conceived by NIO Architecten is also based on the real requisites for visibility, functionality and versatility of the museum machine. With its circular shape and scintillating metal roofing, it will stand out against the surrounding environment and with its tall zigzag tower will forcefully state the museum's role of "sensor", ready to receive cultural stimuli coming from the outside and to disseminate its own proposals throughout the territory (Sensing the waves is the motto coined by Maurice Nio to express this concept). Through the transparency of the ground-floor areas, he proposes to project the various services offered to the public, making them available from the outside as well. With the ample space of the new exhibition level, of variable height and divided into two wings that narrow into corridors connecting to the existing museum halls, the architect can also ensure various solutions and spatial modulations suited to the characteristics of contemporary works of art. Positioned to encircle Gamberini's "culture factory", the futuristic architecture designed by Nio brilliantly synthesizes the new centrality that the museum intends to assume within an urban context that is itself expanding and transforming, explicitly declaring the willingness of the Centro to open its boundaries and radiate to the outside world.
	The museum and its territory The museum will finally be able to display its collection amply and continuously, presenting itself as a prestigious, clearly identifiable entity, opening to the outside its services and cultural proposals in order to contribute to both the intellectual and the economic growth of the area in which it operates. The simultaneous availability of entirely renewed services to the public and various organically linked exhibition spaces within which to alternate without interruption temporary exhibitions and presentation of the permanent collection, will finally allow the Centro Pecci to represent and promote the image of a city and a region where, in addition to long cultural traditions and the great heritage of art from the past, significant examples and numerous developments in contemporary art also find a place.

Information on the expansion project
Beginning of project: 2006
Completion of project: 2008
Work begins: 2009
Work ends: 2011

Project: NIO Architecten, Rotterdam
Project Team: Joan Almekinders, Emanuela Guerrucci, Maurice Nio, Luca Rimatori, Giuseppe Vultaggio
Structural work, project: Jan Van Der Windt - Ingenieursbureau Zonneveld
Installations, supervision: Henk Knipscheer
Geological study: Deborah Bresci
Structural work, detail plan: Iacopo Ceramelli
Structural work, director of operations: Andrea Vignoli
Mechanical systems: Dante Di Carlo
Electric systems: Maurizio Mazzanti
Electric systems, collaborators: Alessio Diegoli, Riccardo Tignoli
Safety coordinator: Paola Falaschi
Lighting systems: Bernardo D'Ippolito
Acoustics: Pietro Danesi
Fire-fighting system: Dante Di Carlo
Static and technical/administrative inspection: Massimo Perri

Procedures manager: Paolo Bartalini - Commune of Prato
Collaborators: Antonella Cacciato, Michele Faranda, Antonio Silvestri - Commune of Prato

Total surface area: 2,934.70 m2
Ground floor: 1,044.70 m2
First floor: 1,890 m2

Exhibition rooms: 2233 m2 -106 m2. of area on two levels, total 2127 m2
Entrance: 245 m2 +25 m2 of outside area, total 270 m2
Educational activities space: 80 m2 of classrooms +193 m2 of workshops, total 273 m2
Commercial area and media-store: 107 +8 m2, total 115 m2
Restaurant and coffee bar: 218 m2
Kitchens: 71 m2
Technical facilities area in basement: 84 m2
Technical areas on ground floor: 12 m2
New storage area in basement: 23 m2
Storage area on ground floor: 28 m2
Bathrooms and WC: 28 m2 +28 m2, total 56 m2
Technical and emergency area below Tower: 38 m2
Footbridges connecting to existing building: 79 m2


The architect Maurice Nio
Maurice Nio (1959) was awarded a degree with honours in architecture in 1988 by the Faculty of Architecture of the Delft University of Technology, with his project for a villa for Michael Jackson, the most original thesis project of that year. This project has been crucially important for the formation of his hybrid working method. Through a mixture of mental processes both mythological and pragmatic, of project strategies that are cryptic and at the same time transparent, he has realized projects with BDG Architekten Ingenieurs (1991-1996), such as the enormous waste incinerator aviTwente. With VHP stedebouwkundigen + architekten + landschapsarchitekten (1997-1999) he has realized the Zuidtangent, the most extensive line of high-quality public transport in Europe.
Since January 1, 2000, he has worked with his own studio NIO architecten; at present he is engaged in building the most beautiful shopping centre in the world, and the darkest floating house in Holland.