NEW YORK, N.Y.- Today Cesar Maia, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, and Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, signed an agreement that will lead to the creation of the Guggenheim Museum Rio de Janeiro. The agreement follows the unanimous endorsement of the project by the Board of Directors of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The project will be realized in partnership with the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The Museum, designed by celebrated French architect Jean Nouvel, will be built on the site of the Mauá Pier on Guanabara Bay. Groundbreaking is expected to take place in late spring of this year.
"With this decision, the City of Rio de Janeiro invests in its future as a cultural capital for Brazil, in its international identity, in the renewal of its historic center through the rehabilitation of the port area, and in its economic development," said Mayor Maia. "As in all great cities of the world," he added, "investments in urban resources make a city unique and increases the value of the existing public patrimony. The value of that investment will ultimately be greater than the original investments."
Situated in southeast Brazil between the ocean and the mountains on the natural port of the Baia de Guanabara (Guanabara Bay), Rio de Janeiro is a city of 6 million people in a metropolitan area of more than 14 million inhabitants. Known as the cidade marvilhosa (marvelous city) for its spectacular geography and hospitable climate, Rio will be the sixth city in which the New York-based Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation operates museums and exhibition spaces; the others are New York, Venice, Bilbao, Berlin, and Las Vegas.
"The Guggenheim Museum Rio de Janeiro is a natural next-step in the life of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation," said Peter B. Lewis, Chairman of the Foundation. "It is a project that furthers our mission by extending the concept of the international museum into South America. The Guggenheim Museum Rio will act as a catalyst for significant cultural exchanges between South and North America. I endorse it wholeheartedly."
The construction of a Guggenheim Museum in Rio de Janeiro will fulfill the longstanding goal of the Guggenheim Foundation to establish a major museum in Latin America. "South America is extraordinarily rich in cultural traditions and absolutely vibrant contemporary arts communities," said Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. "The Guggenheim Foundation hopes to increase the number of exhibitions and cultural exchanges take place between South American institutions and the rest of the global arts community." "It is our primary objective that the new museum will play a major role in establishing and sustaining a new ’north/south’ cultural dialogue," continued Mr. Krens. "The Guggenheim and its partners will offer Rio access to their collections and programming; at the same time, we will engage in unprecedented artistic dialogues with Brazil and its neighbors. By becoming a Brazilian institution, we plan to research, acquire, and present Brazilian and South American art in both Rio and abroad. Through these efforts we hope to exhibit South American art more consistently and effectively in America and Europe."
Mr. Krens went on to say that the Guggenheim partnership with Mayor Cesar Maia and the city of Rio de Janeiro will bring social and economic benefits beyond the purely cultural and architectural. "Mayor Maia has a vision for the future of Rio that is predicated on establishing culture in all its forms as a primary identity for the city. At the same time, the plans for the new museum fit into an urban development plan that will anchor the rehabilitation of the original port area of Rio. This will bring new jobs and new visitors to the original downtown, in much the same way that Frank Gehry’s museum transformed Bilbao. Both the mayor and I believe that Nouvel’s building is a work of architectural brilliance, continuing the great Brazilian architectural traditions established by the incomparable Oscar Niemeyer."
Under the terms of the agreement—which is based on the successful relationship in Bilbao—the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and its alliance partners, the State Hermitage Museum and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, will lend their names and expertise to the new museum, as well as access to their world-famous collections of classical, modern, and contemporary art, and to the superlative exhibition and education programs generated by those institutions. The agreement also calls for the Foundation to advise on the development and construction of the building itself.
Mikhail B. Piotrovski, Director of the State Hermitage Museum, noted, "In a global context, art and culture help overcome barriers and foster understanding and education. We are pleased that the State Hermitage Museum is a partner of the planned Guggenheim Museum in Rio de Janeiro."
Wilfried Seipel, Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, said, "Helping to build cultural bridges between Europe and South America is a gratifying task to which the Kunsthistorisches Museum will engage itself with enthusiasm. Together with the Hermitage as partners in the Guggenheim Museum Rio, we are fortunate to be able to draw on over 4 1/2 million works of art to enrich the program." Juan Ignacio Vidarte, Director of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, was the Project Director of the feasibility study for the new Guggenheim Museum Rio de Janeiro.
"As in Bilbao," said Mr. Vidarte, "the new Guggenheim Museum in Rio will anchor a major urban redevelopment program and is certain to have a positive impact on the region. But six years of cooperation between the Guggenheim Foundation and the Basque Country have also produced a superlative cultural result, and we believe this can be expended to South America. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao looks forward to many collaborations with Rio."
The Guggenheim Museum Rio de Janeiro also extends the reach of the unique trilateral partnership, initially formed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in June 2000, and later joined by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in January 2001. That agreement called upon these three great institutions to make their collections accessible to broader audiences. In Rio, this will be manifested through long-term loan exhibitions that will be developed principally from these partner institutions.
Ownership and Characteristics of the New Museum
The City of Rio de Janeiro will provide the site, capitalize and own the physical building, and assure operational and exhibition funding. The Guggenheim, along with the State Hermitage Museum and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, will provide expertise in museum development, administration, operations, curatorial matters, collections and programming, as well as its strong, internationally respected name.
The site is the Mauá Pier, which projects 1500 feet into Guanabara Bay. It is part of Rio’s Port (the Cais do Porto) and located near Rio’s business downtown area and the historic heart of the city. As with many urban waterfronts and older business districts, this is an area that has faced deterioration in recent years. The new museum is at the heart of the city’s redevelopment plan for this area.
The gross indoor space of the new museum will be approximately 240,000 square feet. The design also includes a theater, a black-box performance space, multimedia production facilities, educational program facilities, a café, a restaurant, a retail shop, outdoor public spaces that can accommodate exhibitions and events, and gardens.
The Program
The program for the new museum will have four principal components, each of which will have its own distinct territory within the compound of Nouvel’s design.
21,500 square feet have been reserved for modern and contemporary International and Brazilian art and contemporary installations. These installations will be drawn from the Guggenheim Permanent Collections and from collections and acquisitions initiatives focusing on Brazil and other regions of Latin America.
13,000 square feet will be devoted to classical and classical modern exhibitions and installations drawn principally from the collections of the Guggenheim Foundation, the State Hermitage Museum and the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
A major Multi-media center featuring video, film, photography, performance and technology based art installations will occupy about 30,000 square feet. These spaces will be designed to accommodate all forms of art-making beyond traditional painting and sculpture, and its exhibition programs will focus on new and contemporary modes of artistic expression.
35,000 square feet will be allocated to special temporary exhibitions of a quality and scope that the Guggenheim currently presents in its various locations worldwide. The exhibition program will include both large- and small-scale exhibitions from three primary sources: (1) exhibitions developed by the Guggenheim curators and shown at other Guggenheim institutions; (2) exhibitions from other museums (in Europe, the US, South America, etc.,) which will be presented in Rio; and (3) exhibitions developed by Guggenheim and guest curators exclusively for the new museum in Rio.
As with all Guggenheim museums, there will be a major educational component in the Guggenheim Museum Rio. The education agenda will offer dynamic programs for a diverse audience, including the region’s artists, scholars, families, schoolchildren, and students. Through a variety of educational programs and resources, the Guggenheim Museum Rio will provide meaningful access to the collections and rich milieu of artistic traditions in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Key goals involve working with the artists, curators, critics, and cultural institutions of Brazil as collaborative partners in the development of innovative programming; and employing the strategic use of technology to foster new educational linkages regionally, nationally, and internationally.
The Architect: Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel has headed his own architectural practice since 1970. He has received many honors, among them the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture, the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Aga Khan Prize for the Arab World Institute, honorary fellowships in the RIBA and the AIA, France’s National Grand Prize for Architecture, and, in 2001, Italy’s Borromini Prize for the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center and Japan’s Praemium Imperial Career Prize.
Nouvel’s principal buildings include the Arab World Institute in Paris, the Lyon Opera House, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Galéries Lafayette department store in Berlin, the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center, the Tours Conference Center, the Hotel in Lucerne, the Andel office building in Prague, the Nantes Justice Center, and most recently, Gasometer, a transformation of a 19th-century Viennese gas tank into housing.
Among the projects currently under study or construction at Ateliers Jean Nouvel are the Dentsu office tower in Tokyo, the Agbar office tower in Barcelona, the UEC office tower in Frankfurt, the Omnitririon Corporation headquarters in Guadalajara, the Richemont Corporation headquarters in Geneva, the Quai Branly Museum of Primal Art in Paris, an addition to the Museo Reina Sophia in Madrid, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.