Centrale Montemartini site features

Centrale Montemartini is a power station with Roman sculpture standing in it, and the machines were never taken out. That is the whole experience: white marble gods in front of black iron plant, lit like a gallery, in a building that generated electricity for Rome.

The building is early twentieth-century industrial, and it reads as such from the street. It was built in the first years of the twentieth century to a design by the engineer Corrado Puccioni and inaugurated on 30 June 1912 as a thermoelectric power station on the Via Ostiense. The district around it was industrial in character too — the general markets and the Gazometro still attest to that.

Inside, the plant is the architecture. There were two steam turbines with their boilers and Diesel engines made by Franco Tosi Meccanica of Legnano; on 21 April 1933 two Tosi Diesel engines of 7,500 horsepower were inaugurated here, replacing the earlier ones. These are the masses the sculpture now stands against: riveted cylinders, walkways, pipework and gauges, kept rather than cleared.

The route starts in a hall named for its columns and works through several levels. The tour runs from the ground-floor Column Hall upward, with the exhibition spaces spread over several levels, all of them accessible.

The sculpture is Capitoline, and it came here as a stopgap that stuck. The museum's history began in 1997 with the transfer of a selection of sculptures and archaeological artefacts from the Capitoline collections — moved so that the works would not be taken away from the public during works. The exhibition that resulted, "The Machines and the Gods", opened in October 1997 with a bold layout that juxtaposed the two for the first time. It was meant to be temporary. Since becoming permanent it has been enriched with new spaces and new archaeological exhibits.

Two pieces are singled out as the masterpieces. The Statue of Marsyas from the Villa delle Vignacce, and the Statue of a Muse: Polymnia.

The machines survived more than obsolescence. The station escaped Allied bombing in the Second World War, and after half a century of activity it became obsolete and, no longer economically viable, was decommissioned. Acea then carried out the reconversion of the historic plant, restoring the machines and adapting the factory for its new use — which is why they look maintained rather than abandoned.

It is named after a person, not a place. Giovanni Montemartini was the former technological services alderman in the Nathan administration.

Access is unusually well provided for. A LOGES tactile path connects the Via Ostiense 106 entrance to the museum entrance, a barrier-free footpath leads through the inner courtyard, both lifts have voice announcements, and deaf visitors can get content in Italian Sign Language through the museum's app.

Hours and price: Tuesday to Sunday, 9.00 to 19.00, last admission an hour before closing; EUR 11.00 adults and EUR 6.50 concessions bought same-day at the desk. A Capitolini Card valid 7 days covers this together with the Capitoline Museums.

The Hall of the Machines

Two Franco Tosi diesel engines of 7,500 HP, installed in 1933, running the length of the room with classical sculpture ranged between them. This is the view the museum exists for, and it is best read from the walkway above rather than from the floor.

The Boiler Room

Built at the end of the 1930s to house a third turbine for a world's fair that never took place. It now holds much of the museum's finest sculpture, including the Statue of a Muse: Polymnia from the Horti Spei Veteris, the Statue of Marsyas from the Villa delle Vignacce, and the Seated Girl from the Gardens of Licinius.

The Portrait of Cleopatra

In the Hall of the Machines, among the copies of Greek originals — one of the collection's best-known heads, and a useful reminder that much of what survives of ancient sculpture is Roman copying rather than Greek carving.

The Column Hall

The ground-floor room that opens the visit, and the gentlest introduction: sculpture displayed conventionally before the building starts arguing with it.

The Train of Pius IX

The carriages of the papal train, given their own hall when the museum expanded in November 2016. Neither classical nor industrial, and the odd third thing in the building.

The plant itself

The turbines, boilers, switchgear and crane gantries were left in place rather than cleared, and they are labelled as exhibits in their own right. Read the room as well as the statues.