The Exhibition Center of Modern and Contemporary Art, former Central fish market, was built in 1913 on a project by architect Giorgio Polli, who created an innovative construction, at the same time functional and aesthetically satisfying.

Giorgio Polli had, one one side, to deal with the technical requirements dictated by the destination of the construction (the hygienic characteristics, the functionality of the sales hall, a certain differentiation and specialization of the structures) and, on the other, to create an architectural work in harmony with the structure of the city and of the buildings around, typically neoclassical.

The mediation between these two different needs found a synthesis in the original basilican model chosen by the architect and readapted to a secular function.