IL MUSEO ACDB
learn at the museum
LABORATORIES
A visit to the museum offers a unique opportunity: to enter the history of the bicycle, which took its first steps in Alessandria at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, and to become passionate about the timeless two-wheeled vehicle, which is capable of interpreting many passions: competitive sport, mechanical-technological, creative and craftsmanship, and even communication and image.
At the end of the exhibition itinerary, in fact, the small Camera Oscura set up on the occasion of the giganto-photographic exhibition dedicated to Fausto Coppi on its Centenary (2019), to narrate the evolution of photography from slide, negative to digital, opens up to the last digital room that summarises the evolution, becomes a Digital Archive and proposes an innovative vision of historical narration.
GUIDED TOURS
At Alessandria Città delle Biciclette the museum guides are also the students of the Istituto Volta who have carried out a project entitled In bici si sVolta.
Realized thanks to the collaboration of the fourth ITIS classes led by teachers M.Grazia Guerci, Anna Maria Maniscalco and Guido Montegrandi, the project involves a motivated group of students from the technical institute of mechanics and mechatronics, transport and logistics - aeronautics and computer science.
CYCLING
Around twenty students from the fourth year of the mechanics and mechatronics, aeronautics and computer science courses at the Istituto Volta in Alessandria have set up the "In bici si sVolta" project, becoming guides to the Alessandria Città delle Biciclette museum in Via San Lorenzo 21.
The students accompanied the young pupils of the Alexandrian middle school along the route of the museum and were able to do so by acquiring transversal skills, first studying and then learning how to spread the history of cycling also in English.
The students also studied the bicycle from a mechanical point of view and produced biographies of five characters and champions, in Italian and English, the myths of cycling enthusiasts: Coppi, Girardengo, Gerbi, Cuniolo and Michel.
EDUCATIONAL
Perfect location for seminars and educational conferences Palazzo Monferrato finds in its museo AcdB the ideal space to carry out workshops with students.
This was the case with the pupils of the second year class A at the G.Migliara professional institute in Alessandria, accompanied by the teachers Cuttano, Fagnoni and Pestarino, who took part in a very special educational trip. After being guided by the narration of Dr. Roberto Livraghi through the exhibition Scatti su Fausto Coppi, dedicated to the "Campionissimo" and his photographers from museo Acdb, they also became the protagonists of a didactic workshop offered by the photographer Gianfranco Colombo in the darkroom specially set up along the exhibition route, which allowed the youngsters to experiment with the methods of printing photos before digital.
Digital Archive
AcdB is working more and more on digital materials, implementing in parallel the photographic section that it inaugurated with the exhibition dedicated in 2019 to Fausto Coppi, Scatti.
The project of the Digital Archive is a work started thanks to the collaboration with the Ghisallo Museum, which sees the direction of the museum focused on a unique heritage.
The goal is not only to save iconographic material that would be lost, digitizing and cataloguing it in an innovative way, but above all to find the way through cultural events, even in stages, even virtual, making it available to all fans and those who want to learn about a history of the country that concerns us closely and that is not yet over. A story that continues to fascinate everyone.
The proposal leads to the use of the digital room with a maxi touch screen that proposes the selection of archived images, and a real experience in three D's of digital exhibitions, inaugurated in 2020, which directly involves the virtual visitor, through a simple link to enter the rooms dedicated to the chapter of this exhibition in stages. Images, texts, music: everything contributes to bring the viewer into the story.
The first route proposed by AcdB with Ghisallo Museum is dedicated to the first rivalry in history. Two champions. Two shirts. Giovanni Gerbi, from Asti, and Giovanni Cuniolo, from Tortona. The first numbers one of the sporting dualism. A rivalry to be enjoyed through images and words: a journey through the story in black and white. In the full wall photographs of a virtual and imaginative exhibition.
Either you are Gerbi or you are Cuniolo, and entering this exhibition you will be able to identify with the sporting rivalry that brings us back to two great champions, perhaps too little celebrated, two great champions before Girardengo and Coppi. Champions in the land of champions. In Piedmont. We are in the early 20th century. When everything began with the bicycle.
Virtual tours
A bookstore that pedals
Numerous volumes are on sale in the Book shop of Museo AcdB , which also offers its catalogues related to the Museum and Exhibitions.
See, listen, think, do
The visit to the museum offers an introduction to the world of cycling, drawing the attention of the pupils to interesting objects or documents in view of the workshop activity chosen by the teacher for the pupils.
The work then continues in a special space dedicated to children; to see, listen, think, do, starting from the comparison of objects, newspapers, photographers and, appropriately selected films, and listening to oral testimonies that the museum has. In the workshop it is possible - among other things - to know and decipher words and expressions of cycling jargon, a sign of an environment that has stood out in society and in the world of sport for at least a century.
It is possible to combine a visit to the museum with other activities: such as a visit to the network museums, to Novi Ligure museo dei Campionissimi, to Castellania Casa Coppi.
Upon reservation, a Museum Guide (in English) accompanies the visit of all the exhibition areas, retracing the history of the bicycle and the first times in Alexandria. The "Mirabilia hunt" is very entertaining for school groups and/or families, also by appointment, and allows you to get to know the story of the Museum by playing: a project shared with the Ghisallo Museum.
