Villa Croce, in Genoa, was built at the end of the 19th century by the Croce family on a pre-existing building from the 16th-17th century, of which it probably retains the masonry structure.

The villa is located in the suburban area of the city, transformed since 1897 with the construction of the coastal ring road, the coastal road that connects the center to the eastern outskirts.

The residential development of the surrounding area of the villa, which partially reduces its property, uses a new model of 19th-century residential house to which the building itself conforms for the treatment of the facades resolved with rusticated base and elevation rhythm by the window sills and stringcourses and by the tympanums around the openings. In 1951, the owners donated Villa Croce with the surrounding garden to the Municipality of Genoa to be used as a museum and public park.

Since 1985, it has been the headquarters of the Museum of Contemporary Art after the restoration that philologically reconstructs the original spaces by eliminating incongruous elements, restoring the parts damaged during the last war, and recovering both the eclectic-style 19th-century wall decorations and the existing furnishings.

The ground floor rooms preserve the original marble fireplaces and the dry tempera decorations on the walls dated 1874, with subjects typical of the second half of the nineteenth century, grotesques, mythological scenes, cartouches with animal depictions, and, in the conference room, some interesting views of the villa and Via Ruffini as they appeared at that time, with the church of Sacro Cuore and San Giacomo still located on the southern side of the street and a path that started from the villa and directly reached the sea.

However, the original pastel-colored paintwork of the facades has not been restored, but a monochrome white color has been used, reproduced inside the two upper floors devoid of decorations.