The Foundation, named after Mario Merz, was founded as a contemporary art center in 2005, with the aim of hosting exhibitions, events, educational activities and carrying out research and the study of art. The headquarters were originally the central of the Officine Lancia, a fascinating example of industrial architecture in Turin in the 1930s, which rises along the axis of the so-called “Spina centrale”, a development urbanistic director on which numerous public art works have been carried out.