The long journey of the Museum of Malaga

2016-12-14 09:00:00

It was born by decree, lived in an apartment, then moved to a palace and ended up being evicted after two decades. Now the Museum of Malaga is about to recover its lost splendour: for the first time in over a century, it will house the provincial Archaeology and Fine Arts collections under one roof. Between them, these two collections contain over 17,000 items, although only 2,700 will be on display at the Palacio de la Aduana, the former Customs Building.
This is Malaga city’s most impressive building and it will be opening its doors again on Monday as the provincial museum, after a long and complex restoration which has lasted more than seven years and transformed an administrative building into the home of one of the most important museums in Spain, in terms of the building and the collections it will be exhibiting.
38,685,978
euros have been invested by the State to convert the palace in Cortina del Muelle into a museum. The architectural plans were drawn up by the Fernando Pardo studio, while the interior design of the exhibition rooms is the work of the Frade Arquitectos company.
18,451.96
square metres. That is the constructed size of the Palacio de la Aduana now, following the modifications which have been carried out to the building. The works began in the spring of 2009 and the most noticeable difference is the roof, which was inspired by the one that was destroyed by flames in the fire of 1922.
68
workers will be employed at this museum, and the number has grown: 31 people used to work at the old one. The Junta de Andalucía announced three weeks ago that the number of staff has increased, and made it clear that they are all people who already work for the regional government in some way, either as civil servants or personnel.
359,445
euros is the amount of money spent by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport to recover the archaeological items from the Loringiana collection.
1973
was the year in which the provincial Archaeology and Fine Arts museums were first incorporated under one roof: at the old Malaga Museum. This was one of the main arguments to support the idea that, for the first time in ages, both collections should be displayed in the same place again, in this case at the Palacio de la Aduana, or Customs building.
3,574
square metres of usable area are on the ground floor of the palace, which will remain open as another of the city’s public squares for anyone who wants to go in and visit it. There are seats, trees, a fountain and information panels about the museum, as well as access to a cafeteria, a shop and the exhibition rooms.
19
years: December 12th, when the museum is officially inaugurated, will mark the 19th anniversary of the first demonstration to demand that the Customs building be used for cultural purposes. In all there were four such demonstrations between 1997 and 2001.
2,700
works of art are on display in the museum’s permanent collection, in both the Archaeology and Fine Arts sections. The Museum of Malaga has more than 17,000 items in total (about 15,000 are archaeological and the rest Fine Arts). This means that the exhibition at the Customs building will only be 15.8 per cent of the institution’s total collection.
680,000
euros have been spent by the Junta de Andalucía, via the Andalusian Institute of Historic Heritage, on restoring more than 450 pieces. Most of the work was carried out between 2010 and 2015.source surinenglish