Pushkin Museum
| Государственный музей изобразительных искусств им. А.С. Пушкина | |
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.
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 Location within Moscow
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| Location | Moscow |
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| Coordinates | 55°44′50″N 37°36′18″E / 55.74722°N 37.60500°E |
| Director | Marina Loshak |
| President | Irina Antonova |
| Website | Official website |
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Russian: Музей изобразительных искусств им. А.С. Пушкина, also known as ГМИИ) is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Svyatoslav Richter's December nights has been held in the Pushkin museum since 1981.
The museum's current name is somewhat misleading, in that it has no direct associations with the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, other than as a posthumous commemoration of his name and fame. The facility was founded by professor Ivan Tsvetaev (father of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva). Tsvetaev persuaded the millionaire and philanthropist Yuriy Nechaev-Maltsov and the fashionable architect Roman Klein of the urgent need to give Moscow a fine arts museum. After going through a number of name-changes, particularly in the transition to the Soviet-era and the return of the Russian capital to Moscow, the museum was finally renamed to honour the memory of Pushkin in 1937, the 100th anniversary of his death.
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts' building was designed by Roman Klein and Vladimir Shukhov and financed primarily by Yury Nechaev-Maltsov. Construction work began in 1898 and continued till 1912. Ivan Rerberg headed structural engineering effort on the museum site for 12 years, till 1909.
In 2008, President Dmitri A. Medvedev announced plans for a $177 million restoration. A Rbn22 billion ($670 million) expansion, developed by Norman Foster in collaboration with local architectural firm Mosproject-5, was confirmed in 2009, but became mired in disputes with officials and preservationists and concern grew that it would not be completed on schedule for 2018. After Moscow’s chief architect Sergei Kuznetsov issued an ultimatum, demanding that Foster take a more active role in the project and prove his commitment by coming to the Russian capital within a month, Norman Foster’s firm resigned from the project in 2013. In 2014, Russian architect Yuri Grigoryan, and his firm Project Meganom, were chosen to take over the project. Grigoryan’s design provides new modern buildings and, following the protest of heritage groups who campaigned to save the pre-revolutionary architecture, preserves the historic 1930s gas station near the Pushkin’s main building inside a glass structure.
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