After lengthy restoration and refitting, Maria Montessori's house museum in Chiaravalle opens

On Saturday, December 11, 2021, Casa Montessori opens in Chiaravalle (Ancona), in the birthplace of the famous pedagogist. From Dec. 12, 2021 to Jan. 6, 2022, guided and free tours will be organized by reservation.

It is a 130-square-meter apartment overlooking Piazza Mazzini. Here on August 31, 1870, Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori was born. Her father, the Ferrara-born Alessandro Montessori, arrived as an inspector at the Manifattura Tabacchi, and her mother Renilde Stoppani, from Monte San Vito in the Marche region of Italy, belonged to a family of small landowners. Maria lived here with her family until she was five years old, and after extensive restoration these rooms became Casa Montessori Chiaravalle. An ancient and contemporary place, respectful of philology; consistent with the demand for accessibility and new fruition; open to the dialogue between the intimate dimension of the house and the urban path that expands to the civic dimension of education (between the Palazzina Marulli home of the Library, the nearby Abbey that houses the Monastery, in axis with the Manifattura Tabacchi towards the sea, the Chiaravalle Montessori Foundation and the Montessori schools of different grades, towards the hinterland).

Set up with museum-like criteria, communication and exhibition apparatus, the house maintains the authenticity of an inhabited place, on the second floor of an apartment building on the main square. It is a place of the story of the woman, the mother, the scholar, the traveler, the scientist, the pedagogue, connecting Chiaravalle to the world.

The project, conceived and curated by Cristiana Colli, has broadened access with the overcoming of architectural barriers, diversified and prolonged the experience of visiting. Birth house and house museum: the whole house is a place of broad knowledge. Maria Montessori ’s life and work are represented with contemporary tools and languages. The house also reconstructs the maps of her existential and scientific quest as a reappropriation, yet another homecoming after the one in October 1950, a year after her last trip to India, when, at the height of her success, she realized her desire to see Chiaravalle again. Maria Montessori died at the Pierson family’s vacation home in Noordwijk aan Zee on May 6, 1952, on the North Sea.

The enhancement and redevelopment project was curated by PLA/STUDIO and is based on a combination of museum exhibition apparatus, interactive multimedia devices and tactile communication elements. The choice of thematically organizing the space into rooms is intended to give a sense of a place of memory combined with intimate and personal enjoyment. These include the map room, the 3.0. room, the method room, the reading room, and the green room.

For info and reservations: www.casamontessorichiaravalle.it

Hours: Monday through Friday 5 to 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m. to noon, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., and 6 to 7 p.m.

After lengthy restoration and refitting, Maria Montessori's house museum in Chiaravalle opens

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