In February 2026 in Milan, with the opening of the Winter Olympics Games which will be hosted in Lombard city and in Cortina, a new museum dedicated to Digital Art will open to the public. The first of his kind in terms of public museums will host a collection including works from 2000 until today.

The Museo Nazionale di Arte Digitale will develop in the ex-Albergo Diurno Venezia, an underground space in liberty style which extends underneath Piazza Oberdan, in the area of Porta Venezia. Strong will be the bounding with MEET, the Centre for International Digital Culture founded by Fondazione Cariplo, which opened in October 2020 in the ex-Spazio Oberdan in Milan.

The Albergo Diurno Venezia, which will host the MNAD from 2026

Despite the expectation for the opening of the official building, the museum and its team, led by Ilaria Bonacossa (ex-director of Artissima) are already working on a series of projects: last June a European congress was organized entitled “The new Atlas of Digital Art”, which will be replicated this year between 22 and 26 June. Numerous are also important collaborations with other institutions, like MaXXI in Rome, Our in Turin and Meet-Digital Culture Center in Milan.

Meet – Centre for International Digital Culture

These events, antecedents to the inauguration lead the museum to “act as a bacteria, to test the work of the institution on several fronts,” has declared Bonacossa. Promoted by the ex-Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini, “The Museum will be dedicated to the production and presentation of digital contents, conducting a strategic role in the contemporary cultural scene, more and more digitized, connected and globalized.”

Great are the questions regarding the conservation of the works that will be exposed in the museum rooms: some protocols on the topic already exist, always evolving, with the necessity to create working figures specialized to face this kind of problem, in the short and long period. The collection will be visible thanks to monitors, iPads and 3D screens, creating an immersive experience for the visitor which, tighter with shows, workshops and visits, will transform the MNAD into a progressive centre for research in the field of digital art.