The eleventh branch of the National Museum of Lithuania will open its doors in Vilnius in April after the renovation that lasted more than a decade.
It is located in the building of the former tsarist barracks, located on T. Kosciuška street.
"We will open the department to visitors at the end of April, it will be an official opening. That building has been closed all the time until now, it has never been accessible to the public, so it is not very well known, but people will recognize it when it gets dark, all the windows of this building will be constantly lit. It will be possible to recognize him from the light," Rūta Kačkutė of the National Museum told BNS.
According to her, open storage facilities are installed on the plinth floor of this building, and part of the ethnographic collections will be transferred and stored in them from other storage facilities of the National Museum. There are also conditions for scientists to work here.
The first and second floors of the former barracks are intended to host changing exhibitions.
"Our goal in this department is to tell stories a little differently, present the results of scientific research in simple language, maybe even let you do some experiments yourself. We focus on the whole family, we want the exhibitions to be attractive to both children and people who are a little more interested," said the head of the National Museum.
"We will start with an exhibition about Egyptian mummies, about those Egyptian mummies that are kept in Lithuania, we will tell about how they came here, what kind of mummies they are," she added.
It is intended to organize two or three changing exhibitions per year.
R. Kačkutė says that until now the National Museum did not have a space for exhibitions that meets the modern requirements of museology.
"In order for us to be able to work internationally, to be able to borrow exhibits from abroad, we have to adapt our spaces. All the buildings of the National Museum of Lithuania are heritage buildings that were built for a completely different purpose and were later adapted for museum activities. This building is no exception, it was also adapted for museum activities, but its management and installation was carried out according to a modern and contemporary project," she said.
The head of the museum gives as an example another department of the museum - the New Arsenal, which "has not received any capital maintenance" since 1968.
According to R. Kačkūta, a cafe will operate in this unit, and various events will be possible in the yard events.
"We will not organize them ourselves, but we will also cooperate with various organizations. Concerts, film screenings, and other cultural events will be able to take place here," she said.
According to the manager of the museum, maintenance works of this unit cost about 9,5 million over a decade. euros.
Author Augustas Stankevičius
