www.hermitage.nl

On 16 May 2007, a press conference was held to provide journalists with information about the forthcoming large scale reconstruction of the historic Amstelhof building relating to its conversion into the Hermitage Amsterdam exhibition centre

On 14 May 2007, reconstruction work began in the city of Amsterdam to prepare the Amstelhof building for phase two of Hermitage Amsterdam exhibition centre. The architects have submitted their final plans for reconstruction of the building and its interiors, as well as the prepared and approved working blueprints. All necessary permissions for carrying out the construction work have been received.

The main thing is that all residents of the Amstelhof nursing home for the aged have been carefully moved to two new buildings. Now, following the reconstruction, the Amstelhof can open its doors in the spring of 2009 to the international public as a branch museum of the State Hermitage in The Netherlands, named the Hermitage Amsterdam Exhibition Centre.

The start of the reconstruction was widely remarked in Amsterdam, where it has been spoken about as ‘a dream come true.' On 9 May 2007, a press conference was held for more than 50 media representatives. That same evening in the Church Hall of the Amstelhof there was a presentation of the planned reconstruction, as well as a presentation of the designs for the building's interiors and for the inner courtyard. In the presence of more than 150 guests, including representatives of political, economic and cultural strata of The Netherlands, the management of the Hermitage on the Amstel Foundation and an official from the Mayor's Office of Amsterdam signed a contract on the transfer of the Amstelhof to the Hermitage on the Amstel Foundation acting as trustee.

Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the Hermitage-Amsterdam Centre Ernst Veen and members of the board of the Foundation also signed a contract with the construction company De Nejs and Sons, which won a tender to carry out the construction work. In the course of four days, from 10 to 13 May, residents of Amsterdam and others who so wished could visit the Amstelhof, which was closed to the public for the past 324 years. This was not merely an “open doors' event: the empty rooms of the Amstelhof were used for an exhibition telling about the past and future of this historic place.

With the permission of relatives of the Amstelhof patients, the well known Dutch photographer Jan van Breda made a series of very moving photographs of the last residents of this nursing home for the aged prior to their departure for specially built new institutions where they will be cared for in conditions meeting modern day expectations of social welfare for the old (www.janyanbreda.com)

During these four days, the Amstelhof was visited by more than ten thousand persons. There were also guest appearances of musicians who performed a variety of types of Russian music, the orchestra of the Dutch cavalry, as well as the HoorSpelFabriek theatre, which put on the show Catherine the Great in the Hermitage.

While the reconstruction of the main centre is going on, the present day Hermitage Amsterdam Centre will continue to put on exhibitions. There will be temporary exhibitions devoted to Art Nouveau and to the work of Caspar David Friedrich. In two years, the transformed Amstelhof will become one of the most modern cultural and exhibition complexes in Holland. The inaugural exhibition open to the general public will be Balls at the Russian Court.

Ernst Veen, Director of the Hermitage-Amsterdam Centre

Pieter van Empelen, director of the Amstelhof building reconstruction project

Hans van Heeswijk, architect of the reconstruction project for the Amstelhof building

Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage

At the press conference

Hermitage Amsterdam exhibition centre