The MAU – Museum of Urban Art of Turin is the first project in the phase of concrete realization, in Italy, with the aim of creating a permanent outdoor artistic settlement located inside a large metropolitan center, with the addition the added value of being an initiative started not from above but from the base, thanks to the consent and the fundamental contribution of the inhabitants. The original nucleus of the MAU is located in the Borgo Vecchio Campidoglio, a working class district of the late 19th century, located between the Switzerland, Appio Claudio and Tassoni courses, and via Fabrizi and Cibrario, not far from the city center.

A portion of urban space miraculously saved from the eviscerations operated by the Regulatory Plan of 1959, which has kept its lattice structure almost intact consisting of low houses with large internal courtyards with green areas, divided by narrow streets, all to favor the relationship of commonality between the inhabitants and a type of settlement, in a semi-central area of ​​Turin, such as to make it a “town within the city”. Beginning in 1991, a work of revaluation of the social, urban and architectural peculiarities of the Borgo began. At a certain point, in the spring of 1995, it is considered to extend the sphere of intervention to art, involving citizens in the choices, given the initial availability of some of them, then continued over time until the current results. The Urban Redevelopment Committee invites some cultural operators in the city to provide their opinion, the Faculty of Architecture with Prof. Carla Bartolozzi, the Accademia Albertina, the artist and master of art Giacomo Soffiantino, and also the author of the present, at the time a member of the Board of Museums and Exhibitions of the City of Turin and artistic co-director of the Gallery of Modern Art, already engaged for years on the front of the relationship between art and territory.

On 1 April 2014, the MAU was included in the recognized realities as part of a framework resolution on public art in Turin. Starting from the “Day of the MAU” in November 2007, our Association has strongly intensified its activities in the area by forging closer collaboration with the craft, commercial, artistic and cultural activities present. Numerous events have been organized or in which we have actively collaborated… We mention the various editions of the Grape Festival, We Camp, Campidoglio never stops, Rocciamelone Arts & Crafts by night, MAU & Co., Remembering Gianni. Street Art to Art (charity auction in memory of the artisan of the Borgo Gianni Garino), Il Borgo adopts the AISM. Borgo Campidoglio for multiple sclerosis, Campidoglio On Ice, Fuori Schema 2013/2014. More and more requests for guided tours of groups and institutions, in addition to those traditionally organized for some years with the Turin Piedmont Museum Subscription, and now also extended to the Antiaereo Refuge in Piazza Risorgimento, in collaboration with the Diffuse Museum of the Resistance.