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Hermitage Museum and AMO Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Define the 21st-Century Museum

Rotterdam, The Netherlands, November 1 (ots/PRNewswire)

Today
the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg) and the think tank AMO,
part of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), have
officially agreed to pursue a collaborative study of the future of
the 21st-Century museum. The joint effort will be to define the
Hermitage as a new prototype for the museum in the 21st-Century.
On the occasion of Russian President Vladimir Putin's state visit
to the Netherlands, Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage,
and Rem Koolhaas, partner of AMO/OMA, signed a Memorandum of
Understanding this morning in Amsterdam. The project is expected to
begin in early 2006.
The enormity of the Hermitage's collection combined with its
extensive number of rooms has created a scale, complexity and an
organisation that approaches urbanism. For this reason, the Hermitage
and AMO will develop, as part of the study, a Curatorial Master Plan,
which will focus on the intersection between the needs to modernize
and to preserve the museum's approach to art and historic
preservation.
Both parties intend to finance the project through public and
private funding sources. A fundraising campaign is already under way
to realize the project.
In the recent past, many museums have modernized through
architectural extensions. The basis of this joint study will be to
address the need of the museum to explore other means of change that
do not  threaten the history of its buildings but instead preserve
their  architectural integrity.
Of all the world-class museums, the Hermitage sustains the largest
collection, and the largest number of exhibitions. In recent years,
the Hermitage has expanded its reach with satellite spaces outside
Russia, including in Amsterdam and London. AMO has been a consultant
to the Hermitage in its pursuits of an extension in St. Petersburg
(the General Staff Building), and OMA has been the architect for the
satellite space shared with the Guggenheim Foundation in Las Vegas
(USA). The pursuit of this new project will be a continuation of this
longstanding partnership between the Hermitage and AMO/OMA.
On AMO:
AMO, OMA's sister company, is a think tank that operates in
areas beyond the boundaries of architecture and urbanism - including
sociology, technology, media and politics.
It is expected that this collaboration with the Hermitage will
comprise a significant portion of AMO's work in the upcoming year. In
addition to the State Hermitage Museum, AMO is working for the
fashion house Prada. In 2004, AMO produced "The Image of Europe," an
exhibition, sponsored by the Dutch Presidency and European
Commission. AMO's resume includes work for Universal Studios,
Schiphol Group, Harvard University, Condé Nast, Volkswagen, Heineken
and Ikea.

Contact:

For more information, please contact Hausi Abdul-Karim, Jan Knikker
or David van der Leer at the OMA PR department, pr@oma.nl or tel.
+31-10-24-38-200.