A private initiative has been given the go ahead to construct a Barcelona Hermitage museum. The plan is for it to be ready to open in 2019.
The developers of the museum, designer Ujo Pallarés, from Cultural Development Barcelona, and his partner, the Russian entrepreneur Valery Yarovslavski from Acceleration Group plan to raise €28 million from private donors to finance the project.
At the end of 2011, the Barcelona Port Authority decided to redevelop the northern entrance to the port, the last urban stretch of Barcelona still not rehabilitated, and to provide it with a first level artistic institution. The building design by Íñigo Amézola, is to be constructed in the Barcelona port, in a waterfront area that is being developed with luxury hotels and a marina
The museum will have five floors and seven gallery rooms, distributed over 15,000 square meters, and hoes to atttract to 500,000 visitors per year.
The Barcelona museum and the Hermitage have apparently signed a fifty year agreement. Jorge Wagensberg, who is to be the Director of the new museum said, “The Hermitage of Barcelona will be a fusion of art and science”. Artworks will be displayed on loan from from the Russian Hermitage including paintings, furniture, and scientific tools and objects and will illustrate a narrative about the human condition.
There has been controversy about the plans, financing and contractual arrangements for the museum during the four years since the project was first mooted.
The construction of the building is slated to start the end of 2016.
