The Ministry of Culture has abandoned plans to merge the Architecture Museum and the Museum of Applied Arts and Design into a joint foundation.
Two weeks ago the ministry promised to allocate seventy thousand euros to facilitate the merger process. The idea of bringing together two museums aroused great opposition both within the museums themselves and more widely.
The idea of forming a foundation with two museums was justified by the Ministry as a saving, especially at the expense of salary costs. At the same time, analysis conducted in 2019 had shown that the merger of two very different museums could only create synergy through additional funding and a common physical space. Now the ministry has announced that it will abandon the idea of unification and create two new foundations based on both museums.
“I am very grateful to the fields of architecture, design and applied art, which supported this dialogue with the Ministry, and, of course, to the Ministry itself, which dared to make a decision contrary to the original decision,” said Triin Ojari, director of the architecture museum.
Since the contracts of the current museum directors Kai Lobjaka and Triin Ojar will last until March 1, the ministry will soon announce a competition for both directors. At the same time, work will begin on the formation of new foundations.
“We are quite busy with this now, we are already starting to prepare job descriptions and are trying to hold competitions for managers at the beginning of the year,” said Märt Volmer, undersecretary for cultural values at the Ministry of Culture.
The foundation requires a clear formulation of the founder’s expectations, this document is also under development. “We are in favor of change, museums must keep up with the times. The expectations of the public, the expectations of the ministry, our own expectations about what we want to do change very rapidly over time, and their more precise formulation is also positive for the future development of the museum,” commented Ojari.
“In addition to the horizontal expectations that all the institutions established by the Ministry of Culture have, such as sustainability, green thinking, accessibility, internationalization, each profession has specific expectations. We put them together, we implement them, we consult with both fields, and can reflect the expectations of the Estonian people,” Volmer said.
2023-12-14 16:52:00
the-museum-of-architecture-and-the-museum-of-applied-arts-and-design-are-not-being-merged-museums