Guggenheim-Hermitage to Open in Vilnius, Close in Vegas

VILNIUS, Lithuania—Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid has won a competition to design a museum in Vilnius, Lithuania, that will partly serve as an exhibition space for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and St. Peterburg's State Hermitage Museum, reports Bloomberg.

"Lithuania has set its sights on becoming a premier international center of art," said Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas in a statement. "We can think of no better institutions than the State Hermitage and the Guggenheim Foundation to help guide us in this project." The museum will focus on new media art and will have a permanent collection of works from the Fluxus movement, led by Lithuanian-born artist George Maciunas.

Hadid beat out Daniel Libeskind and Italy's Massimiliano Fuksas for the commission. Costs for the publicly and privately funded museum, scheduled to open by 2011, will be announced this summer.

Meanwhile, the Las Vegas space operated by the two museums, the first major collaboration between a U.S. and a Russian museum, will close next month, reports the Art Newspaper.

One source said the closure comes at the end of a seven-year contract for the space in the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, which has seen visitor numbers dwindle since its launch in 2001.

“We are moving the Las Vegas project to other places around the world,” said Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky.