Smithsonian Museum will not open a branch in London Automatic translate

LONDON. The Smithsonian Museum will not open a branch in London. The museum management abandoned this idea in favor of cooperation with the Albert and Victoria Museum and will place its collections in their new building in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

This decision is fundamentally different from the initial plans to organize their own cultural space of 40,000 square feet. This would be the first permanent museum exhibition outside the United States in its entire 170-year history.

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Project

Smithsonian Museum Secretary David J. Skorton said collaboration with the Albert and Victoria Museum would help achieve goals while significantly reducing costs. The exact amount of the transaction has not yet been disclosed, but it will certainly be much lower than the originally planned 5-7 million US dollars.

The Smithsonian Museum Board of Trustees endorsed the new concept. David J. Scorton described the partnership as unusual. “Two large cultural institutions from two different countries are united in one building for long-term cooperation,” he concluded.

The Smithsonian Museum will be housed in the new 190,000-square-foot Albert and Victoria Museum building, which will be built across from Zaha Hadid’s London Water Center. The museum will be adjacent to other cultural institutions, including the Sadler Wells Theater and the University of the Arts in London. The exact layout of the premises, as well as the composition and number of collections, is being specified.

“The collaboration of the two museum giants will go beyond a simple neighborhood,” said Tim Reeve, deputy director of the museum, Albert and Victoria, and chief operating officer. “We will organize joint exhibitions, develop lecture and meeting courses,” Rive continued. “The association will give us the opportunity to implement projects that are unlikely to ever be embodied in other conditions.”

Today, the Smithsonian Institution conducts research projects in more than 140 countries. In 1973, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was created, in which hundreds of scientists from Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution work together. But a joint project with the Albert and Victoria Museum will be the first experience of cooperation in the framework of state programs. The museum partnership will be funded by private contributions, including grants from the FutureLondon Foundation, a new charitable organization established to support Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The opening of new cultural objects of the park is scheduled for 2021.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru