Santa Maria della Scala
Santa Maria della Scala is a museum complex layered with centuries of history, underground levels and multiple identities. The main challenge was conceptual: reorganizing a complex information architecture so that visitors, whether they're looking for opening hours, an exhibition or the history of the Pellegrinaio, find what they need without getting lost.
Giving a thousand-year-old place a digital voice
Santa Maria della Scala is a museum complex with over a thousand years of history, located in the heart of Siena, opposite the Cathedral. A former medieval hospital, it now hosts exhibitions, permanent collections and exhibition spaces spread across several underground levels. The website had to capture the complexity and beauty of this unique place and make it accessible to an international audience.
The challenge
Telling the story of a place that is at once a museum, a historic monument and a living cultural space. The site had to serve very different needs: inform visitors about opening hours and tickets, tell the complex's thousand-year history, present temporary exhibitions and permanent collections, and do it all in four languages (Italian, English, French and German) to welcome the international visitors Siena attracts every year. All while keeping the browsing experience elegant and never cluttered.
The approach
We built the site with Next.js for high performance and a smooth experience, and DatoCMS as the headless CMS to give the museum team full autonomy over content in all four languages. The information architecture was rethought from scratch to organize a vast body of content, from artwork pages to practical information, into a clear, navigable structure. The design showcases the extraordinary images of the spaces and artworks, with a visual language that respects the solemnity of the place without feeling distant.
Tech stack
Next.js on the front end, with static rendering and ISR to combine speed with real-time content updates. DatoCMS as the headless CMS, chosen for its native multilingual support and flexible content models. Four languages managed through a single editorial workflow, with no duplicated pages. The result is a fast, indexable site that's easy for museum staff to update.
The result
A website that bridges a thousand-year heritage and today's visitors. Navigation guides users from discovering exhibitions to planning their visit, by way of exploring the spaces and collections. Images lead the experience, text supports without weighing it down, and switching languages is seamless. A project where technology serves culture.
