Discovering the Old Port you can find the old Cotton Warehouses which were renovated and now host many events and temporary exhibitions.
The one currently ongoing is the Illusions Exhibition which opened in Genoa back in April - but that I decided to visit it just over one week ago.
The Illusions Exhibition is a fun show dedicated to the world of optical illusions, where what you believe to be true doesn't actually exist.
After touring around Italy, it also arrived in Genoa so I decided to go and see what it was all about.
The Illusions Exhibition is an interactive show…
The Illusions Exhibition is an interactive show which puts to the test the five senses and the mind through optical and perceptual illusions. There are over 70 illusions to interact with: a journey through elements of physics, optical art, psychology and art.
The great thing is that you are an active participant in the experience, you look but you can also touch, enter the set, experiment and take photos...You experience everything firsthand.
You can for instance find drawings that change depending on how you look at them, mirror games to look deformed in every possible way, reversed rooms illusions to look tiny or huge. It is truly an original exhibition that amazes us adults too and not just children.
The exhibition is also attentive to environmental sustainability and during the journey you can find some advice on how to walk 5 km every day so as to save as many as 5000 tons of CO2 a day on fossil fuel.
The visit lasts about an hour and a half and can interest adults and children of all ages.
There is also a space dedicated to virtual reality which is an exhibition within the exhibition.
I really enjoyed it because it is an interactive exhibition that will entertain visitors while confusing their senses and their minds, managing to make anyone doubt their own perceptions.
Illusions and fun rooms
As I mentioned at the beginning, the exhibition is hosted by the old Cotton Warehouses complex which measures over thirty thousand square meters.I
It was first built at the end of the 19th century when Genoa was one of the most important ports for importing goods from faraway lands and it was later adapted to be a cotton warehouse when, at the turn of the 20th century, as much as 90% of the raw cotton imported into Italy passed through the port of Genoa. The area was bombed and damaged during the Second World War and after the post-war renovation, the complex was completely used as warehouses for all the cotton that arrived in Genoa, hence the name that today defines the entire area.
In 1992, on the occasion of the Expo marking the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, the Cotton Warehouses were completely renovated by famous architect Renzo Piano, who also designed other buildings in the area, to give them new life and a new intended use, hence for events and exhibitions.
They have a terrific location being just a two-minute walk from the Genoa aquarium and old port area and, moreover, they overlook the sea and Genoa’s most famous landmarks, such as the geo-sphere and the lighthouse.
The Magazzini del Cotone (old Cotton Warehouses) are indeed available to host business meetings, conferences and private events.
