This space is located in one of the most significant historical places in the life of John Bosco: the dormitory at the seminary, where the saint lived for a few years in his youth and where he befriended many companions and formators with whom he remained connected for many years of his life.
The San Filippo Complex is a significant architectural asset in the historic heart of Chieri (in via Vittorio Emanuele II, 63) and presents itself as a point of welcome and in-depth study for tourists and citizens. It comprises the Baroque church of San Filippo Neri and the annexed former seminary of the Archdiocese of Turin, and is a strategic place for the development of many tourist projects. It is also the starting point of some historical-artistic city tours, as well as being an important stage of the "Cammino Don Bosco", a route for hikers and for all those who wish to know the spirit and history of the places crossed by John Bosco.
In order to offer an engaging experience to visitors, the Municipality of Chieri has considered it necessary to adapt the museum layout to contemporary needs, to make the experience more enriching and enjoyable.
The first intervention is the change of name from the current name "Don Bosco Visitor Centre" to "Don Bosco Chieri Museum". The heart of the process is to make this place perceived as a "Museum", for a cultural experience closely linked to the community, and not as a "Visitors Centre", which presents the idea of being a stage on the way, not very significant from a cultural point of view.
A new signage system was then created, designed with the primary objective of providing a clear and accessible guide for visitors to reach the Museum and to find their way around the building. This signage system has been designed and developed following the new graphic lines and the coordinated image of the Museum, in order to create a coherent link between the visual elements of the museum experience.
In addition, a restyling process was carried out in the four rooms and in the adjacent corridor, the starting and ending point of the visit experience. At the beginning, visitors will be able to enjoy an informative totem and an introduction video to the visit. In the four rooms of the exhibition, the furnishings have been integrated with new set-up proposals, characterised by material and chromatic uniformity, and with large photographic prints. It was also decided to reduce the number of panels, proposing rewriting of the type of content proposed, but at the same time more agile for visitors. And all the interventions, in general, have been designed to offer visitors a more integrated and engaging visual experience.
Finally, the renovation concerned the narrative path in the four exhibition halls, which proposes a harmonious interaction between the different communication tools, with several films, made from scratch, and curated by the director Luca Olivieri, with the narrating voices of Danilo Bruni (John Bosco) and Diego Casale (John Baptist Lemoyne).
It begins with the story of Chieri in the first half of the nineteenth century, where a young John Bosco arrived from the countryside (Room 1), later focusing on the work carried out by John Bosco in the early years to maintain his studies, and on significant life experiences, such as the foundation of the Society for a Good Time (Società di Allegria) in which he revealed his unmistakable style bringing young people together that characterised him throughout his life (Room 2).
Room 3 is dedicated to the years John Bosco spent in the seminary, a story that allows us to highlight figures and places of the Chieri Church. We speak in particular of his friend Luigi Comollo who died early, leaving a deep wound in John's heart.
Finally, Room 4 captures the suggestion of the departure of John Bosco from Chieri to reach other places and other people, connecting ideally withDon Bosco's journey from then on. The new large wall projection enhances the vision of images made by drone over Chieri, inspiring visitors to continue the visit through knowledge of the territory.
After leaving the fourth room, visitors find an evoctive "fifth scene" with a landscape that characterises the territory around Chieri, which invites you to capture the moment by taking a photograph. And at the end of the tour, all visitors have the opportunity to participate in a didactic/thematic quiz to evaluate what they have learned.
All the films in the exhibition are presented in Italian, English, Spanish and in the national sign language (LIS).
