In line with constant efforts on the part of the municipal authorities to preserve the memory of the economic and social processes that have shaped the city’s identity, the Milan City Council took steps in 1990 to buy the old Ansaldo industrial plant at Porta Genova and use it for cultural services. The disused factories, authentic monuments of industrial archaeology, have been converted into studios, workshops and new creative spaces. In continuity with its original vocation but also in response to the need for recognition and revaluation manifested by the foreign communities that have found opportunities to develop and put down roots in the city, the Milan Council decided to create the Mudec Museum of Cultures in the old Ansaldo area to house and display the municipal collections of ethnographic material.