Last fall the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in the Russian capital Moscow unveiled the plans of British architects Foster + partners for the refurbishment of the existing museum and for the transition of the surrounding area into a cultural quarter. Just like other prestigious museum projects in Moscow and elsewhere, the museum expansion is fueled by the immense wealth of Russia’s government and business elite.

Design by Foster + Partners for the estimated $380 million upgrade of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum which will close next year and reopen in 2012, in time for its centenary.

On May 5, two days before being sworn in as president of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev announced that the government would allocate more than 4.2 billion rubles ($176.9 million). The full price tag of the project has not been announced yet, but some sources estimate it at about $380 million. Today Russia is benefiting from the skyrocketing oil prices and thus can afford a fully upgraded Pushkin Museum. But what will go into the new museum complex?

This question was raised this week by Konstantin Akinsha, an art historian and journalist, in the Wall Street Journal. He describes how many masterpieces in the museum’s collection were seized by the Red Army from defeated Nazi Germany, and these works of art have become subject to claims by Germany and other governments as well as by heirs of Holocaust victims in recent years.

If these heirs have their way and the works have to be returned, the new museum complex is doomed to present inferior pieces of art or, as mr. Akinsha suggests: “perhaps the vacant galleries could be used for the Museum of Gifts to Vladimir Putin or, in due course, to its former board chairman, President Dmitry Medvedev.”

In the coming years Moscow will also experience the opening of the new Center for Contemporary art and Culture (CCC), an initiative of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s partner Daria Zhukova. The museum will be housed in a 1927 bus garage designed by the Constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov. The centre will also build an art library, a theatre and a cafe and will host lectures and talks by artists.

Interior of Konstantin Melnikov’s Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage depot in 1927 (left) and 2008 (right), which will be transformed into the new Center for Contemporary art and Culture (CCC).

The building is owned by the government and has been leased to the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia for an initial period of 49 years. It has been under restoration since 2002 and has now been converted into an art gallery by London architect Jamie Fobert whose other projects include the Frieze tent in Regent’s Park in 2006.

Read more:
The Art Newspaper (May 15, 2008)
The Wall Street Journal (May 21, 2008)

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