In July 2005 the latest (4th) issue of the magazine came out. It is devoted to the museum project known as the Greater Hermitage, which involves the conversion of the General Staff building into a new Museum of 19th and 20th Century Art. This issue of Hermitage Magazine has a historic purpose: to explain the Hermitage’s largest undertaking of the post-war years, the transformation of the imperial General Staff Building into a new museum of nineteenth and twentieth-century art. After the Grand Louvre and the new MoMA building in New York, it is now the turn of the Hermitage to re-invent itself on an even more majestic scale.

The Hermitage could already lay claim to being the largest museum in the world without the General Staff Building. Now roughly 800 rooms are to be added in a spectacularly beautilul Neoclassical building, constructed in the early years of the nineteenth century to house the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Aftairs.

The problems that the museum faces are not, however, simple. What should be displayed there? How can nineteenth-century offices be converted to museum space? What to do with the five internal courtyards? What to preserve and what to jettison? Half of this magazine is devoted to these questions. And, perhaps, the fun of it is that the Hermitage does not itself claim to have found all the answers. Readers are invited to debate and suggest new solutions. This is a world museum and the world should have a say in how it manages its conversion from Hermitage to Greater Hermitage, thus ensuring that future generations have greater pleasure, instruction and inspiration from its galleries.

We hear from the architects who have won the World Bank tender to handle the conversion, Oleg and Nikita Yawein (p 34); from the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas who advises the Yaweins and the museum; from Tom Krens, Director of the Guggenheim Museum, who is helping to create the twentieth-century and contemporary displays; from the museum’s Chief Architect, Valery Lukin; from the paintings curator Albert Kostenevich; from the decorative arts curator, Tamara Rappe; from Russia’sleading architectural historian, Dmitry Shvidkovsky; and, last but not least, from the Director ol the museum himself, Mikhail Piotrovsky.

The mix of romantic idealism and realism in what they write, seasoned with humour, is very characteristic of Russia and suggests that the new development on Palace Square is going to be a demonstration of how Russians can tackle a common museum problem in a wholly original way.

In addition to this major section, the magazine describes the remarkable discovery of a hoard of Greek gold on a quiet evening in the Crimea. We report on two important Rubens works, unseen for 50 years, which now hang in the Rubens Gallery; on an intriging blue rubber sculpture donated by Louise Bourgeois; and on a visit by children from Beslan.

We are honoured to have the Director ofthe British Museum, Neil MacGregor, write the final page, "My Hermitage", and movingly communicate his affection for our museum.

Hermitage Magazine