The Hermitage-Guggenheim Exhibition Centre
in Las Vegas

History of the Project

The creation of the exhibition centre in Las Vegas is the first concrete example and result of the long-term collaboration agreement signed by the State Hermitage and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in June 2000.
The idea of collaboration is to make the priceless collections of the two museums more accessible to a wider public. The agreement envisages working together in the exchange of exhibitions, the reconstruction of the eastern wing of the General Staff building in St Petersburg and the creation in it of a museum of contemporary art, as well as the realization of joint projects in the sphere of the Internet. The agreement calls for the creation of joint exhibition centres to be used for exhibitions of classical and contemporary art.

The creation of the Hermitage-Guggenheim Exhibition Centre in Las Vegas is perceived as a new form of international cultural collaboration.The joint project is the creation of the Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky and Thomas Krens, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

The new building, with a floor area of 63,700 square feet (5920 square metres), is located within The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino complex that occupies a huge area in central Las Vegas. The city is rapidly transforming itself from the world’s gambling centre into a cultural and tourist centre welcoming up to 35 million visitors a year.

The museum building was designed by Rem Koolhaas, one of the foremost contemporary architects who is professor of architecture at Harvard and winner of the 2000 Pritzker Prize. He has been responsible for a number of prominent projects in Europe, including the Kunsthal in his native Rotterdam. The facade of the exhibition centre is made of a special sort of steel never before used in construction. The centre consists of four galleries whose walls are also finished with steel which, in combination with the parquet floors and wood-finished ceiling, creates an unusually striking exhibition facility. Natural light penetrates from several points around the perimeter of the building.

The Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky and Thomas Krens, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, confirmed that the decision to implement their first joint project in a city like Las Vegas was unexpected. "Only a year ago, the notion of the Guggenheim Museum in Las Vegas would have seemed, at the very least, implausible," said Mr. Krens. "While there is no doubt that Las Vegas and its colourful past exercises a certain fascination for both Americans and visitors from abroad, the rationale for a new museum in Las Vegas is more complex than simply its location. Las Vegas is changing, to be sure; today the profile of a typical Las Vegas visitor increasingly approximates the profile of the visitors upon which every major museum in the world - including the Hermitage and Guggenheim - depends, and to which they communicate. Las Vegas is no longer a city of gambling as much as it is an unparalleled tourist destination, with uniquely evocative vernacular architecture and many other attractions ranging from the natural splendour of its desert and mountain ranges, to its sophistication and popularity as a convention centre. It is very exciting to locate a Russian-American cultural joint venture in the fastest growing city in the U.S."

In his speech Mikhail Piotrovsky emphasized, "We intend to use our stocks to produce a unique cultural effect. The exhibitions that we organize for Las Vegas will also be shown in the State Hermitage in St Petersburg and in the Guggenheim museums in New York, Bilbao and Venice. Yes, we reckon on capturing a new audience - that is indeed part of our concept, but the Hermitage-Guggenheim Museum is also a new platform on which we can carry out our scholarly researches, create a new model of collaboration in the field of culture and continue to perform our main mission."

The Hermitage-Guggenheim Exhibition Centre in Las Vegas was opened on 7 October 2001. The first exhibition - Masterpieces and Their Collectors: 19th- and 20th-Century European Painting from the Collections of the State Hermitage and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation - presented 45 superb works that bring out both the differences and the complementary character of the two world-famous collections.

Opening of the exhibition
European 19th- and 20th- Century Painting from the Collections of the State Hermitage and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
at the Hermitage-Guggenheim Exhibition Centre
Larger view