Hermitage to Get Koolhaas Makeover

Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas will redesign the art displays of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Bloomberg News reported on January 30, 2008 that Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (b. 1944) has been hired to redesign the art displays of St. Peterburg's landmark State Hermitage Museum. The ambitious project will last to 2014, the year of the institution's 250th anniversary.

As part of the museum's plan to modernize how many of its 3 million objects are exhibited in its six-building 2000-room campus, Koolhaas will initially focus on the Islamic and Chinese art collections while developing a new setting for contemporary works without changing and adding to any of the existing 18th- and 19th-century structures. Neither Koolhaas, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2002), nor Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the Hermitage, revealed the project's budget. Financial support is being provided by the Dutch government and Moscow's Mercury Group, a luxury goods retailer.

The State Hermitage Museum is known for its collections of art from Palaeolithic times to the modern era, coins, medals and armor. Madonna and Child (The Benois Madonna) (ca. 1479-80) by Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is a major attraction.