Apollo Awards 2024: Museum Opening of the Year

Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon
September 2024

Using land newly acquired next to the Gulbenkian’s Centre for Modern Art, the architect Kengo Kuma has reimagined the building, adding new gallery spaces underneath and a public plaza at the rear. With the landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, who has redesigned the expanded gardens, he has also introduced a canopy along the building’s southern face and glass doors which integrate the building more seamlessly with the surrounding greenery.

Exterior of the renovated Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon. Photo: Fernando Guerra

Fondation Bemberg, Toulouse
February 2024

In 1994 the collector Georges Bemberg (1915–2011) established the Fondation Bemberg in the Hôtel d’Assézat in Toulouse as a home for his eclectic art collection, which includes works by Pierre Bonnard and Walter Sickert, as well as pieces by Picasso, Veronese, Rodin and more. In 2020 it was decided that the galleries should be renovated and rehung; now, works are hung more spaciously, in rooms painted to complement them.

The courtyard of the Hôtel d’Assézat, home of the Fondation Bemberg, Toulouse. Photo: Jean-Jacques Ader; © Fondation Bemberg

Kunstsilo, Kristiansand
May 2024

Kunstsilo, a £52m museum in Kristiansand, Norway, constructed around a disused 1930s grain silo, opened in May. Nicolai Tangen, manager of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, built it to house his vast art collection. With a striking design that makes the silo columns visible both inside and outside the building, the museum houses mostly 20th-century works by Nordic artists, as well as an innovative immersive art project, S-Lab.

Kunstsilo, which stands in the port in Kristiansand. Photo: © Alan Williams

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York – European Paintings galleries
November 2023

After a five-year renovation, the Met’s 45 European galleries, containing some 700 works, have been rehung, introducing modern art (before, the display stopped in 1800), expanding the concept of European art and giving greater prominence to works by women, Black artists and other traditionally overlooked groups. The $150m project also included changing the colour of walls, repositioning doorways and replacing 30,000 square feet of skylights to improve the light.

View of the European Paintings galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Courtesy the Met

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – Japanese galleries
May 2024

The five rooms housing MFA Boston’s collection of Japanese art and artefacts – one of the world’s most significant – reopened in May after six years. The renovated rooms include the Temple Room, with seven newly conserved statues of Buddha; the Arts of Japan gallery, displaying everything from paintings and netsuke carving to tea ceramics and swords; and the Japanese Print Gallery, the largest assembly of Japanese prints outside Japan.

Perth Museum, Perth
March 2024

£27m was spent on repurposing Perth City Hall as the Perth Museum – the city’s largest ever capital investment. The new museum tells Scotland’s history through artefacts and artworks from a Bronze Age logboat to a cast of the heaviest salmon ever caught. Its crowning glory is the Stone of Destiny, returned to Scotland in 1996 after almost seven centuries in Westminster Abbey, where it was used in coronations.