Machinery was stripped out, the factory demolished, the site developed to a design by Renzo Piano, a leading Italian architect, and the Academia Barilla opened in 2004, its basement housing the library.

ECONOMIST: Barilla's cookery library: Food for thought | The

It's an arrangement that recalls Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with its new entrance pavilion by Renzo Piano, which now houses all the necessary but distracting museum functions such as ticketing and coat check to ensure that once inside the Venetian palazzo you are able to focus exclusively on art and taste.

WSJ: Barnes Collection | Albert C. Barnes | Ensemble: Albert C. Barnes and the Experiment in Education | Saving Dr. Barnes's Vision| By Eric Gibson