Rem Koolhaas to design new building for Hermitage Museum

Renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is set to design a new building for the world famous State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Located in the museum’s storage facility in Staraya Derevnya in the north of the city, the new building will house the Hermitage Library, the Costume Museum, the gallery’s publishing arm, and a public event space.

Director of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky said: “We are now planning a third building. I hope to discuss it with the Department of Urban Planning next week and will present the project to the board of the Ministry of Culture in October.”

Koolhaas, the curator of the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, has close ties to Russia and regularly visits for work. In the past, he advised the Hermitage on the development of its contemporary art wing in the General Staff Building and helped design the education programme at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, an urbanism studies centre in the capital. He is currently designing the new building for the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow’s Gorky Park.

In addition to the expansion, Piotrovsky mooted the idea of opening a regional branch of the Hermitage in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. There are currently outposts in Kazan, Vyborg with more in development in Yekaterinburg, Omsk and Kaliningrad. Abroad, there are branches in Amsterdam and Ferrara, Italy.

Source: RIA Novosti