Russia’s Hermitage Museum is moving towards finalizing its long planned expansion to Spain—but significant obstacles still lay ahead. The board of directors of the Port of Barcelona has approved construction of the Hermitage Barcelona, a cultural institution centered around art, architecture, and design.
The new museum will be designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Toyo Ito. His vision takes the form of a multi-story, 140,000-square-foot building with an undulant white facade—like sheets on a clothesline—meant to harmonize with the adjacent sea. The structure will use solar and marine hydrothermal energy to generate renewable air conditioning and cohere to the sustainability requirements of LEED certification. The new museum is intended to revitalize the Port of Barcelona and its surrounding environs and to foster cross-cultural dialogue. The new museum is scheduled to be completed in 2024.
In a statement, the State Hermitage Museum’s general director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, called the new museum a “bridge for cultural exchange between St. Petersburg and Barcelona, between Barcelona and the Hermitage.”
“Barcelona and St Petersburg are connected as two port cities, with the advantage of combining the traffic of international visitors with the cultural needs and cultural traditions of the city,” Piotrovsky continued. “The Hermitage Barcelona is intended to play an important new part in the cultural map of Barcelona, for the local people as much as visitors, and most importantly to establish a dialogue between people.”
With access to the State Hermitage Museum’s collection of 3.2 million objects, Hermitage Barcelona will host exhibitions of both contemporary and historic work, addressing modern issues within the framework of the Catalonian city’s history. Situated in the northern mouth of the Port of Barcelona, the museum will connect the city to the port, serving as “a reference point, not only as a cultural facility, but also as a model of respect for the environment,” Ito said in a statement. “It will be here where thoughts and reflections of people from all over the world are exchanged. We want it to be a source of pride for the city of Barcelona.”
