Explore the World of Carbon Fiber at MAE Museum - Where the Building Itself is a Work of Art

MAE Museum, an innovative exhibition space dedicated to carbon fibre, has been unveiled by the international design and innovation office, CRA - Carlo Ratti Associati, and architect Italo Rota. The museum is built largely from both new and recycled carbon fibre, pursuing a circular approach to design. The exhibition path employs robotics to guide visitors through the world’s largest archive of acrylic fibre technologies, documenting scientific advancements in the development of carbon fibre, as well as parallel changes in society and fashion. Developed for the leading machinery manufacturing company, MAE, the new museum is located in Piacenza, Italy.

Carbon fibre is a highly resistant, lightweight material that is used in everything from aerospace to automotive industries to bicycle manufacturing. It is generated from acrylic fibre, similar to the one commonly used in clothing, and then transformed into carbon fibre through a complex chemical process, where the machines of MAE are world leaders. Similarly, the MAE museum’s exhibition path is conceived as a twofold journey from the past into the future: from the heyday of synthetic fibres in postwar European clothing to the latest breakthroughs in chemical and engineering research. While the museum is located inside a renovated warehouse, most interior components are built with acrylic and carbon fibre, including the entrance doors which open like a curtain.

Carlo Ratti, founding partner at CRA and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says, “From high-performance bikes to the Lamborghini Aventador car, carbon fibre is driving innovation in multiple sectors. The MAE museum celebrates a defining material of modernity, by focusing on its new circular frontier and envisioning new applications for its use. We are delighted to work with MAE, a company whose history and know-how pioneered the transition from the original use of acrylic fibre in clothing to today’s use of carbon fibre in industries as varied as aerospace and automotive.”

In the first section of the museum, visitors encounter a robotic archive warehouse, lit with dazzling white light and filled with MAE’s historical documents. A series of mechanical arms move along the walls to extract photos, technical dossiers, and campaigns from the brand’s 50-year history, and bring these items to a raised central platform, where visitors can sit and browse through them. After that, visitors go through a long corridor where they can observe the process by which acrylic fibre is transformed into carbon fibre.

This is followed by the second section of the museum dedicated to the use of fibre in contemporary industry. Within a black room enriched by an immersive installation, a set of interactive artefacts explores the experimental applications of carbon fibre and shows the most innovative prototypes made with it by car-making and aerospace companies. The MAE Museum is located at MAE’s Italian headquarters and caters to different audiences, including the general public, schools, and chemistry and engineering specialists.

In early July 2021, MAE announced a collaboration with Leonardo, one of the world’s largest defence contractors, to build a 17-million-euro pilot plant at the same location. This plant will produce innovative materials for use in the fields of aerospace, defence, and security. The MAE Museum project builds on recent CRA research in both the design of cultural spaces and the concept of circularity in architecture. The Italy Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, designed by CRA and Italo Rota, along with F&M Ingegneria and Matteo Gatto, focuses specifically on the use of experimental construction materials and will open in early October 2021. CRA also recently completed the construction of the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan and curated the “Eyes of the City” exhibition at the eighth Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in Shenzhen, China.

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Press release and images ©CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati