The building of the
Museum of Fine Arts, built in 1830, is in a deplorable state and its
infrastructure needs a complete renovation, said the museum’s directors when
they announced that a new building is planned.
The original building
was built for other purposes, but the museum has been housed there
for more than a hundred years.
The inappropriate
climatic conditions were also a concern for generations of previous museum
directors. According to the many letters of museum directors, Sh.
Amiranashvili, T. Sanikidze and N. Lomouri, preserved in the museum’s archives,
all three of them asked the government for funding support to protect the museum's
collections. For decades their attempts failed to attract funding to equip the museum
to new standards and to provide appropriate conditions.
In 2016, the Georgian
National Museum secured the adjacent 3,100 m² building and its design renovation
has been completed. In the process of planning the new building, the rehabilitation
will adopt world class standards.
The main component
for museum reforms in Georgia is the formation of the Georgian National Museum
National Centre of Antiquities (a conservation-restoration centre). In 2009, a
detailed plan was prepared, under a EU-funded project, in cooperation with the Georgian
National Museum, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and Berlin State
Museums.
Along with these
projects, there will be the inauguation of the ‘Museum District’ – the district
of all museums within close proximity of each other in the centre of Tbiisi. The
formation of the group of museums located in the centre was already initiated
by Shalva Amiranashvili in 1973 - when he adopted the idea of the Berlin Museum
Island.
Today, the Georgian
National Museum is actively cooperating with the Berlin Museum Island. Under
the partnership, the Georgian National Museum and the Berlin Museum Island
jointly prepared the Tbilisi Museum District development plan. In 2012, the
exhibition and the international conference "Berlin Museum Island -
Tbilisi Museum District: Keeping the past - facing the future" were
dedicated to the concept of the museum district in Tbilisi.
At present, the
detailed plan of the National Centre of Antiquities is already completed and the
preliminary work is underway.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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