The Gallerie del Progetto have been located in the eighteenth century Palazzo Valvason Morpurgo in Udine’s historic city centre since 2003. In addition to providing a venue for temporary exhibitions, the galleries are also home to the city’s design and architecture archives which hold approximately twenty thousand drawings, models, photographs and historical photographic slides. These include resources donated to the City Council featuring the work of important local architects such as D'Aronco, Zanini and D'Olivo.

The archive materials, which can be accessed upon prior request, are also used in displays supporting temporary exhibitions both within the Galleries and at other museum sites.

The building - Palazzo Valvason Morpurgo

Palazzo Valvason Morpurgo is a prestigious eighteenth century building resulting from the incorporation of several residences in Via Savorgnana.

In around 1705, the Sarmede family completely renovated the complex, transforming it into the building we see today. The facade was given a harmonious, elegant appearance, while the family factory was annexed to the building that runs towards the courtyard, which was enclosed by an open viewing gallery (belvedere) dominated by sculptures representing the seasons.

At the beginning of the 1800s, the Valvason Counts commissioned Giambattista Canal and Giuseppe Borsato to redecorate the staircase, drawing room, and other rooms of the piano nobile (first floor) floor with a magnificent cycle of neoclassical frescoes, while at the turn of the following century, the Morpurgo Barons introduced changes to the interiors in response to changing residential needs  as well as embellishing the garden fountain with an elegant stone statue of a Nymph in the neoclassical style, realized at the end of the nineteenth century by the Udine sculptor Leonardo Liso. 

The building was bequeathed to Udine City Council in 1969 by Enrico Morpurgo, who requested it be turned into a museum.