Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana, Art museum in Lugano, Switzerland

The Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana is an art museum displaying works from medieval times to contemporary creators, spread across two separate locations. One location offers three exhibition floors with rotating and permanent collections dedicated to the region's artistic heritage.

The idea of a Ticino art museum in Lugano dates to 1892, when the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli was considered as a site. The Museo Cantonale d'Arte opened in Palazzo Reali in 1987; the city's Museo d'Arte, rooted in the 1904 Fondazione Caccia, moved to Villa Ciani in 1933. After joint management from 2012, the two museums merged and the MASI opened on 12 September 2015.

The museum's name, Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana, states its focus: art from Italian-speaking Switzerland. Its holdings bring together the canton's and the city's collections, listed as category A cultural property of national importance in the Swiss inventory. The Collezione Giancarlo e Danna Olgiati, given to Lugano in 2012 as a usufruct, adds over 200 avant-garde works of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The museum spans two locations within the city that are reachable on foot, each offering different focal points in the collection. Plan to spend two to three hours to visit both sites and fully explore the varied holdings across all floors.

The Collezione Giancarlo e Danna Olgiati, over 200 works of 20th- and 21st-century avant-garde art, was given to Lugano in 2012 as a usufruct and opened the same year in the Spazio -1. It is shown as a separate section of the museum, alongside the LAC and Palazzo Reali sites.