Physicist Paolo Budinich was the man who imagined Trieste as the ‘City of Science’ and set about building it. In the 1950s he launched the Physics Symposia that led to Trieste being chosen as the home of the ICTP. In 1978 he founded SISSA, Italy’s first doctoral school, and in 1986 the Immaginario Scientifico, Italy’s first interactive science museum – and the list goes on to this day. Budinich’s vision centred on the growth of culture as a necessary condition for bringing down borders: political ones, certainly, but above all those of the mind.