After several months closed to the public for different reasons, the new maat building was redesigned according to the museological and museographic perspective of the new director Beatrice Leanza. These are changes that announce not only a new architectural perspective of the different exhibition spaces, but also the idea of what the programme of a contemporary art museum should be, under the parameters of the New Museology.

A new access corridor to the museum has been designed by the New Yorker studio SO-IL. There is a venue for debates, meetings and informal learning activities, in the old Oval Room. The major installation Beeline, built by Artworks, will occupy the new building in the next five months, discussing the role of architecture in the flexibilization of space and the very hierarchies created by it. In the Main Gallery, the architecture was also altered so that this space would recover its initial geometry, with a free blueprint and fluid circulation, respecting the curvilinear layout of the Amanda Levete Architects studio.

These interventions reflect a restructuring of the museum’s position in society and the major current political issues. According to Leanza, the museum must reflect a programmatic change, focused on experimentation and participation, the maat Mode, which must also “prototype the museum of the future”. According to the director, “cultural institutions must be catalysing platforms to make the discourse actionable and empower the audiences […], by articulating debate, sharing opinions and formulating knowledge”.

In parallel, a new institutional image was conceived by the design studio Barbara Says…, and there will be a greater presence of the digital in the promotion, dissemination and creation of native contents, with the development of the maat Digital Mode. Every week, with thematic chapters, several subjects will be made available, besides an articulation with the maat Extended editorial program, to expand many of the debates carried out by the different agents of the museum – podcasts, videos, texts, online cinema, etc.

If Pedro Gadanho wanted to put the maat on the artistic global map, bringing together several contemporary artists in the international artistic panorama, Beatriz Leanza seeks local proximity and contact with the public, which is the seed of change and political, social and cultural transformation.

So far, only the main guidelines of this new project have been announced. More information about events and exhibitions will be published when made public.