World Museums

The Archaeological museum at Olympia (Greece)

One of the most important archaeological museums in Greece. It hosts in its collection artefacts from the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus, in Olympia, where the ancient Olympic Games were born and hosted.

The new museum was constructed in 1975, and eventually opened in 1982, re-exhibiting its treasures. The architect of the museum was Patrocolos Karadinos.

Museo Del Prado (Spain)

The Prado Museum is a neo-Classical building by the Architect Juan de Villanueva, the construction of which began in the year 1785. It was conceived of as a museum and natural history room forming part of a building complex dedicated to the study of science, as planned under the reign of Charles III and within the scope of the urban reform that took place on the Paseo del Prado (previously named Salon del Prado), which also embellished with various monumental fountains (Cybele, Apollo and Neptune).

It was established in 1819 as the "Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture" by King Ferdinand VII, with pieces from the royal collections amassed by earlier Spanish Monarchs, his forebears. At the end of the 19th century, the Museum -by then national in scope- received works from another museums, then called the Trinity, that were of a ecclesiastic nature and which had been expropriated under laws governing the depreciation of ecclesiastic assets. From the time of the creation and merger of the two museums many other works of art have been added to the Prado through donations, legacies and acquisitions.

Only a tenth of the museum's artistic holdings are actually on display in its two buildings, the Villanueva building and the Casуn del Buen Retiro. The remainder is held in other places, museums, institutions and Government buildings or in storage at specially conditioned sites within the two museum buildings.

The large museum collections fundamentally include paintings. However, there is a valuable collection of sculptures, drawings, furniture, luxury art, coins and medallions that cannot be permanently displayed due to the lack of space.

The painting collection (12th to 20th century) is displayed as followed: up to the 18th century and Goyas work is in the Villanueva building, and the 19th and 20th centuries' work in the nearby Casуn del Buen Retiro.

The fundamental painting collections belong to the Spanish schools -the best represented- and the Italian and Flemish schools. The French, Dutch and German schools, through numerically less represented, are not unworthy of mention vis-a-vis their quality. Two halls are expressly reserved for sculpture, but sculptural pieces are scattered throughout the different halls in both museum buildings. All decorative art is on display in what is known as the Dauphin's Treasure.

Uffizi Gallery (Italy)The construction of the Uffizi palace began in 1560, when the Duke Cosimo I dei Medici decided to build a special seat for the offices (hence the name "uffizi") of the thirteen magistracies, that is for the administrative center of the Florentine State. Cosimo I commissioned the project of the building to Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect at the Medici court, who realized one of the most famous architectural masterwork of Florentine Mannerism. Stretching from the Signoria Palace to the river Arno the costruction posed difficult technical problems since the foundations were quite over the river; Vasari had to include into the building the ancient church of San Pier Scheraggio and the ancient Zecca (near the Orcagna Loggias). When in 1574 Vasari and Cosimo I died, the Uffizi were not yet completed: Francesco I, son of Cosimo I, succeeded his father, Bernardo Buontalenti succeeded Vasari in supervision of construction; in 1581 the building was terminated. Some years before at the first floor the offices of the thirteen magistracies had been installed: everyone of these had a beautiful entrance door in the portico at the ground floor. A man of peculiar intelligence, Francesco I (1541-1587) had a profound interest for science, alchemy and art; in 1581 he decided to give a nearly private arrangement to the second floor of the Uffizi. In the west wing he set laboratories where specialized artisans worked jewels and precious stones, perfumes were distilled, new medecines were experimented; in the east wing he placed ancient sculptures of medicean collection: shortly afterwards in this side of the building Buontalenti started to erect the Tribune. Francesco's successors increased more and more the medicean collection with new acquisitions of paintings, sculptures, precious and rare object in general; they were set not only at the Uffizi but also at Pitti Palace or in other medicean palaces. The continuing growth of the granducal collections in 17th century enriched the Uffizi: new rooms of the second floor were arranged to display masterworks as in a museum and in the meanwhile the Gallery could be visited on request by Florentine or foreign persons. For this the Uffizi can be considered the first kind of modern museum of the history. In 1737, with the death of Gian Gastone (born in 1671) the Medici dynasty ended and the family of Lorraine ascended the throne of Tuscany. The last descendant of Medici family, the Palatine Electrix Anna Maria Luisa, sister of Gian Gastone, made an important agreement that secured for ever the city of Florence all the medicean art treasures. It was so eliminated any risk of dispersion of this artistic patrimony unique in the world. The Lorraine family, from Pietro Leopoldo to Leopoldo II, enriched the whole collection, increasing it with important masterpieces: many paintings and several hundred of drawings were bought, many Florentine pictures were transferred to the Uffizi from Tuscan monastries, after suppression of religious orders during the 19th century. In 1860 at the formation of the Kingdom of Italy the Medici-Lorraine collections became public property to all effects and purposes. At the end of the 19th century a new arrangement of the Gallery caused the destruction of the wonderful Medici Theatre, to make way to the first rooms of the east corridor, before the Tribune

. In 1989 the State Archive that occupied the first floor of the Uffizi, has been transferred in the new seat of Piazza Beccaria: the first floor will be indeed arranged to double the Gallery's area, as planned in the Nuovi Uffizi project. The first six rooms of this floor have beeen recently restored; all the other rooms soon will be added to them, to make way to the exhibition of many masterworks now conserved in the warehouses and realize new arrangements for all needs of a museum of such importance.

The Museum of The Romanian PeasantThe Museum of The Romanian Peasant is part of the large family of European Museums for Folk Arts and Traditions. It is a National Museum, functionning under patronage of the Ministry of Culture. Owner of an impressive collection of objects, even if otherwise poor - as far as the financial means necessary to capitalize this collection are minimum -, placed in a historical monument building, (new Romanian style), whose restauration costs exceed by far the budget allocated by the Ministry of Culture, The Museum of The Romanian Peasant in spite of all these, has managed to put in practice a special type of muzeology. The original poetics developped in relation to the object was certain one of the reason why the Museum was awarded the EMYA - European Museum of the Year Award. One of the other reasons, of equal importance, was the very assuming of the poverty; the personalized style of display in the halls has a certain number of extensions which sometime happen to go beyond the door of the Museum: that is, not only openings, concerts and conferences, but also publications and unconventional ideas, like the Missionary Museum or the Village School, for instance.