The Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea is housed in the 17th-century Villa Ghirlanda in Cinisello Balsamo;a town located a few kilometres outside Milan.As Italy's first public museum devoted to contemporary photography and technologically generated images in general;its activities are aimed at promotion;study and dissemination with particular emphasis on the significance of the technological transformations underway and the relationship between photography and the other forms of expression.There is also an educational department with a broad range of initiatives aimed at the general public.
The collections comprise a total of about 2;000;000 images by some 800 Italian and foreign photographers and provide an illuminating overview of national and international photography since the end of World War II with a particular focus on the contemporary period.Important themes such as the transformation of the present-day landscape;portraiture;social photography and artistic investigations are also addressed.
A specialized library of approximately 12;000 books and yearly volumes of magazines is available to the public.