Ayala Museum on soft opening after renovation
To cap off its 60th anniversary and in time for the festive season, Ayala Foundation had the soft opening of Ayala Museum and Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL) on December 4. Closed for renovation since June 2019, the soft opening offers a glimpse of the newly renovated museum and library with five galleries initially accessible to the public with pre-booked admissions, timed entries, and limited capacity on admissions.
The new Ayala Museum boasts of refreshed exhibition, event, and retail spaces. Designed once again by Leandro V. Locsin Partners (LVLP), it features a new inviting lobby marked by a distinctive Asian sensibility and borrowed landscape, integrating it closer to the Greenbelt complex and its environs. The resulting outside-inside atmosphere is a wise pandemic response alongside plans to ensure the museum is a safe zone, defined by physical distancing and safety from the transmission of disease.
A total of five new exhibitions are now open for viewing at the museum as well as its website and dedicated app.
A fitting follow-through to this year's quincentennial celebration of the circumnavigation of the world, the exhibition "Intertwined: Transpacific, Transcultural Philippines" explores the resulting entangled cultures brought about by man's ability to circumnavigate the world with over 240 carefully curated objects and artworks.
A new dedicated gallery in honor of artist Fernando Zobel who envisioned Ayala Museum will be unveiled with the exhibition "Landscape into Painting: Fernando Zobel Serie Blanca." As an art and history museum, the Orientations Gallery conveys, with a display of tangible objects from the Ayala Museum collections, the wealth and diversity that abound in the cultures and peoples throughout the islands and the nation's past.
And for the first time ever in the Philippines, guests will encounter the Digital Gallery located in the museum's new lobby. Made up of eight sprawling screens, the gallery enables visitors to digitally explore objects from the museum and library collections and engage in interactive and up-close conversations with art and history for free.
The Diorama Experience, a totally refreshed exhibition mainstay, will also be on view for a new generation to enjoy.
The rest of the Ayala Museum galleries will be unveiled by the first half of 2022.
In response to the global pandemic and to ensure guests will feel both inspired and safe when visiting, operational adjustments and safety protocols have been adopted. All guests visiting the museum and library, regardless of age, must be fully vaccinated and will have to provide proof of vaccination upon entry for the safety of all visitors and staff.
Full protocols, visitation guidelines, and reminders are available on Ayala Museum's new website: www.ayalamuseum.org/visit.
Source: TheManila Times
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