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Abstract: Currently, the study and the exhibition of the history and artistic traces of city development are gaining new interest. Several Italian and European cities are proposing, or have just established, organizations or museums intended to «display» their past. This has come about because money has been invested, in recognition of the fact that this is an important activity, to support research on how to do it most effectively. Discussions were wide ranging, highlighting the often quite different aims and interests of vested interest groups. Such diversity also illustrated the risks these sometimes conflicting interests could produce. It would seem that the basic idea of a city museum can be very ambiguous. Interpretations could fall on a spectrum of possibilities from the simple collection of local objects to a series of narratives of activities that had taken place in an urban context. Recently a research group has been constituted at the University IUAV of Venice to undertake this work. The group has been based on the premiss that a contemporary City Museum (promoted by the local bank-foundation) has to be a conduit for knowledge to a large and varied public including, on equal terms: citizens, immigrants, tourists visiting on a short-term or long-term basis and people with cultural and professional interests in the urban environment. It means that the group (which has not a professional commitment, but a scientific purpose) has been exploring different methods and approaches for interpreting a town or city under the constant and never-ending process of urban transformation.