A Museum Dedicated to Coffee Just Opened in Italy

Drinking coffee is one thing, but learning the entire history of the world’s favorite drink is another task. The new Museo Lavazza in Turin, Italy, is what the museum's curators are calling a “circular journey,” bringing visitors through the story of the Lavazza company and the coffee production process.

Upon entering, each guest gets their own espresso cup. Visitors will then be transported through five different sections: Casa Lavazzo, focusing on the company’s archive; the Fabbrica, which digs into the coffee-making process; the Piazza, a deeper dive into the social and ritualistic act of enjoying coffee; La’Atleier, serving as a media archive; and L’Universo, an immersive experience that ends with a very special coffee tasting.

The entire museum will bring you through 120 years of history, all centered around the drink that gets so many of us up and moving in the morning. The artifacts offer an impressive range, from the first espresso machine sent into space to historic ad campaigns.

But, the museum hopes to become much more than a tourist attraction. Located at Lavazzo’s new headquarters, museum architect Cino Zucchi shared in an interview with Wallpaper that the hope is that the museum creates a more symbiotic relationship between the business and its community.

“The new Lavazza campus represents a new way of addressing the relationship between a private company and the city it is based in, between a building and the public space that surrounds it,” Zucchi says. “In stark contrast to the concept of ‘zoning’ found in functionalist town planning, this project revisits, in a contemporary light, the layering and the coexistence of various different functions typical of ancient cities, with a high quality environmentally conscious garden, a design school, two restaurants, an events venue, a museum and new generation work spaces.”

So far, the museum and business headquarters have cost more than $140 million to build. You can read more about the museum and plan your visit at the Museo Lavazzaro website.