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17 new museums opening in 2022

From the ancient artefacts at the Grand Egyptian Museum to a futuristic Robot Science Museum, here are our new museum highlights

Many new museums around the world are ready to welcome visitors for the first time, as the attractions industry looks forward to a brighter 12 months. We take a look at the top 17 new museums opening in 2022.

One of the highlights in 2022 for the museum sector is likely to be the new Grand Egyptian Museum. This is set to finally open its doors in the summer after years of delays. Elsewhere, several other projects have seen disruption as a result of the global pandemic, such as Dubai’s Museum of the Future and New York’s Museum of Broadway.

Our list of new museums to watch, which is in no particular order, has something for everyone, with contemporary art, significant artefacts, social history, underwater exploration, music and even whisky!

New museums to look forward to in 2022

1 Museum of North Vancouver – Vancouver, Canada

The new Museum of North Vancouver (MONOVA) opened on 4 December 2021 for limited previews, after achieving its $1.5 million Comprehensive Campaign goal. The $7.6 million museum has been funded by $6.1 million total investment from the City of North Vancouver, Province of British Columbia and Government of Canada and over $1.5 million in donations.

Initially, it is operating 4 days a week with an opening celebration to follow soon, when the “You Are Here @ The Shipyards” exhibit opens.

“We’re excited to welcome the community into this incredible new museum,” said MONOVA Director, Wesley Wenhardt.

“I look forward to strengthening and building new relationships in the community, especially those with the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaɬ Nations. I’m excited to learn more about the community of North Vancouver and honoured to work with the Museum and Archives team on the launch of North Vancouver’s newest cultural attraction.”

“Showcasing our rich culture and history in today’s modern, vibrant, and dynamic community is important for all people,” added Mayor Linda Buchanan. “MONOVA represents another important addition to the cultural precinct in Lower Lonsdale that the City has committed to fostering. A tremendous amount of work has brought us to this grand opening and I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

Image: Buchanan and Wenhardt on the museum’s refurbished Streetcar. Photo by Alison Boulier and courtesy of MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver

2 Museum of the Future – Dubai, UAE

Museum of the future Dubai UAE new museums 2022

Following some delays, Dubai’s futuristic new Museum of the Future (pictured, top) is now expected to open in 2022.

It is located within an award-winning stainless steel structure, topped by a giant torus ‘eye’. Speaking to blooloop in 2019 on the topic of the technology that will be used in the museum, director Lath Carlson said:

“When they hear ‘Museum of the Future’, a lot of people envision robots, flying cars and shiny gadgets. But that’s not really what we’re about. Some of those things are fantastic and creative and innovative. If they address a big challenge like climate change, we want to show them off.

“Really, though, it is about the storytelling, and how we effectively deploy technology in the service of storytelling. The latest and greatest technology doesn’t last very long. However, if you focus on the underlying storytelling, that is timeless.”

3 Institute of Contemporary African Art & Film – Ilorin, Nigeria

institute contemporary african art and film

Next on our list of new museums for 2020 is Nigeria’s first major visual arts museum. The Institute of Contemporary African Art & Film (ICAAF) is expected to open in the spring and in November 2021, the Kwara State announced that the project is 60 percent complete.

Located in Ilorin, the museum is purpose-built and will be home to post-production studios, a film screening room, a lecture hall and co-working spaces. Alongside the exhibitions, guests will be able to enjoy a café, a sculpture garden, and a bookshop.

ICAAF was founded under the advisory of Dolly Kola-Balogun, creative director at Retro Africa, an art gallery in Abuja.

“ICAAF is set to position Ilorin as a cultural capital in Northern Nigeria and strengthen the linkages between the North and the South through cultural transmission,” Kola-Balogun said.

“By solidifying Ilorin’s post as a creative hub, ICAAF will attract greater tourism and investment opportunities. With more robust funding, Ilorin has the potential to cultivate industries as Lagos has done for the film industry in the south.”

4 The Grand Egyptian Museum – Giza, Egypt

GEM Pyramid Wall

One of the most long-awaited new museum projects of recent years, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will finally open its doors in 2022. In January 2022, it was announced that work on the project is 99% complete.

With a collection of more than 100,000 artefacts covering 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, GEM will be the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilisation. Within the 500,000 square-metre venue, there will be three floors, featuring conference facilities, educational spaces, a 250-seat 3D cinema and a children’s museum. The complex will also include shops and restaurants.

One key highlight will be the Tutankhamun collection. This will have its own dedicated exhibition space, showing all 5,600 objects retrieved from the boy pharaoh’s tomb.

GEM will replace the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Speaking to blooloop, Waleed Abdel Fattah, senior VP at Hill International, and project manager for GEM said:

“One of the differences from the old Egyptian museum is that GEM has a storyline running through the building. It immerses you at every stage of Egyptian civilization. A lot of high-end technology, including virtual reality from various suppliers and designers from across Europe, will enrich the visitor experience.”

See alsoThe Grand Egyptian Museum: everything we know so far

5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum – Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Museum will move into a new venue in Kendall Square in Cambridge this year, home to over 58,000ft2 of galleries, classrooms and performance spaces.

“We are determined that MIT shall have the kind of museum it really deserves—a place of high quality, that offers a vivid introduction to the work of the Institute past and present, that provides the widest access to our unique historical collections, and that inspires generations of future scientists, engineers, and innovators,” says John Durant, Mark R. Epstein (Class of 1963) Director, MIT Museum.

“Opportunities like this don’t come along every day. We’ve embarked on an exciting journey, and we hope you will join us!”

The move to a new museum building will result in a new front door for the university: somewhere where Cambridge residents and the MIT community can come together to celebrate curiosity and exploration.

Buro Happold is providing integrated multidisciplinary engineering services for the project.

6 Robot Science Museum – Seoul, South Korea

Robot Museum Seoul

South Korea’s capital is one of the most high-tech cities in the world, so it’s no surprise that it would be home to the first Robot Science Museum, which is expected to open this year.

The museum will be its own opening exhibit, since robots have been involved in all stages of the project from design to manufacturing and construction, as architect Melike Altınışık explains:

“The new Robot Science Museum (RSM) which plays a catalytic role in advancing and promoting science, technology, and innovation throughout society is not only going to exhibit robots but actually from design, manufacturing to construction and services robots will be in charge. In other words, RSM will start its ‘first exhibition’ with ‘its own construction’ by robots on site.”

Once the new museum opens in early 2022, guests will be able to learn more about the latest innovations in AI, AR & VR, hologram technology and robotics. It also plans to run training courses.

Image courtesy of the architect

7 Museum of Broadway – New York City, New York, USA

museum of broadway new york

The Museum of Broadway, the first permanent museum to celebrate Broadway’s rich and unique history, will open this summer in Times Square. The new attraction was founded by entrepreneur and producer Julie Boardman and Rubik Marketing founder Diane Nicoletti.

It will showcase the history of theatre in New York, exploring key moments and iconic plays and musicals.

Guests will be able to find out more about the topic though immersive installations, finding themselves inside the action of hit musicals, while video projections will look at New York’s theatres through the ages. There will also be an exhibit that walks visitors through the making of a Broadway show.

“We really thought it would be this great idea that was a hybrid of both an experiential museum that’s very interactive and colorful and fun,” Nicoletti previously told the New York Times. “As well as making sure that we were really getting the integrity of the history of Broadway, by including costumes and artifacts and historic elements as well.”

8 Sydney Modern – Sydney, Australia

The Art Gallery of NSW’s A$344 million Sydney Modern is set to be completed at the end of 2022, coinciding with the museum’s 150th anniversary.

This project will see the transformation of The Art Gallery of NSW into a two-building art museum, nearly doubling the existing space and creating a new standalone building as well as a public art garden. The current building is also being updated and a new grand forecourt is being added.

Together, the two buildings will create an expanded campus, linking the museum with other key sites in Sydney Harbour, such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney Opera House and the State Library.

Sydney Modern will be home to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture, alongside Australian art and art from the Asia Pacific region, with technology being used to connect visitors to the artists and their stories.

The Art Gallery of NSW is Australia’s first art museum to be awarded the highest rating for sustainable design.

9 Hong Kong Palace Museum – Hong Kong, China

hong kong palace museum

When the Hong Kong Palace Museum opens in mid-2022, this new museum will join the recently opened M+ in the West Kowloon Cultural District and will hold a collection of around 800 artefacts from Beijing’s Palace Museum, including 160 ‘national treasures‘.

The HK$3.5 billion attraction will feature nine galleries, showcasing art collections from the Palace Museum, as well as objects from Hong Kong and elsewhere, some of which have never been displayed before. It will also include a 400-seat auditorium, learning and innovation centre, and F&B.

While the Hong Kong Palace Museum will display items from Beijing’s Palace Museum, it should not be viewed as a branch of the original museum said director Louis Ng, in an interview with The Art Newspaper:

“We have no intention to build a branch… but to use Hong Kong as a platform to give a new interpretation of [the Palace Museum’s] collection.”

He added: “We are not just displaying objects, nor copying the Palace Museum. We want to create a fresh, contemporary interpretation of Chinese culture.”

10 The Bob Dylan Center – Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

Bob Dylan Center

The Bob Dylan Center will open in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 10 May 2022. A museum dedicated to the work of the musician, it has been designed by Olson Kundig and will feature more than 100,000 exclusive items from the Bob Dylan Archive.

Visitors will be able to discover original manuscripts, unreleased recordings, unseen performances, photos and more. The museum will display its collection using cutting-edge immersive technology and exhibits will be designed to engage both long-time fans and those who have not come across the artist’s work previously.

The Bob Dylan Center will also include authentic studio environment, as well as an immersive film experience directed by famous Dylan chronicler Jennifer Lebeau and a screening room showing documentaries and concert footage. Plus, there will be a multimedia timeline, written by historian Sean Wilentz.

Located close to Tulsa’s Woody Guthrie Center, the museum will face Guthrie Green and the external facade will feature a rare 1965 image of Dylan, donated by Jerry Schatzberg.

11 International African American Museum – Charleston, South Carolina, USA

International African American Museum

Located at Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, this new museum is scheduled to open in 2022. The International African American Museum (IAAM) was designed by New York-based architectural firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

Gadson’s Wharf was the first destination for an estimated 100,000 enslaved Africans during the peak of the international slave trade. On the topic of the museum’s location, speaking to blooloop in 2021, CEO Dr Tonya Matthews, said “This is, of course, Charleston, South Carolina. There is no shortage of stories that we have to tell here.

“Out of those conversations came a better understanding of Gadsden’s Wharf and what that meant in terms of slavery and the American role in the slave trade. The extraordinary percentage of enslaved peoples that came into slavery through the spot where we’re building the International African American Museum began to add impetus and sacredness and importance to the conversation.”

Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA), a multidisciplinary firm specialising in the planning and design of museums, exhibits, educational environments and visitor attractions, is the exhibit designer for the IAAM and Solomon Group, an award-winning leader in exhibit fabrication, AV systems integration and live event production, is the fabricator and AV integrator.

Galleries include African Roots and Routes, Carolina Gold and South Carolina Connections, and American Journeys. It will also be home to IAAM’s Centre for Family History, a family genealogy centre, as well as the African Ancestors Memorial Garden, which will be free and open to the public.

12 National Museum – Oslo, Norway

national museum oslo

On 11 June 2022 this new attraction, the largest art museum in the Nordic countries, will open in Oslo. It is a collaboration between Norway’s Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery and Kunstindustrimuseet and is designed by German architects Kleihues + Schuwerk.

The design includes the stunning 2,400 square metre Light Hall, which will act as an exhibition venue. The building is constructed from durable materials like oak, bronze and marble and the facade is covered with Norwegian slate. It is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent.

It will be home to around 400,000 objects, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, textiles, furniture and architectural models. The 54,000 square metre venue encompasses 13,000 square metres of exhibition space, as well as as a roof terrace, shop, cafés and the biggest art library in the region.

“The new museum will be a place for new ideas, inspiration and compelling cultural experiences. We will make art accessible to everyone and reflect the society and the times we live in,” says the National Museum’s website.

13 Museum of Modern Electronic Music – Frankfurt, Germany

museum of modern electronic music

The new Museum of Modern Electronic Music (MOMEM) opens on 6 April 2022. Founded by Alexander Azary and Talla 2XLC, MOMEM will be a space to explore the history of electronic music and the evolution of its multiple genres and sub-genres The city of Frankfurt is a fitting home, since it is one of the birthplaces of European electronic music.

As well as immersive installations and temporary exhibitions, MOMEM also plans to host movie nights, concerts and club nights, as well as lectures and workshops with guest DJs, producers and artists. The opening exhibition is by German DJ Sven Väth and German sculptor Tobias Rehberger called ‘Sven Väth – It’s simple to tell what saved us from hell’.

“There is no better opening exhibition for MOMEM,” said MOMEM director Alex Azary. “Sven Väth and Tobias Rehberger have each, in their own way, taken electronic music culture from Frankfurt to the world.”

14 East End Women’s Museum – London, UK

Having been operating as a pop-up museum since 2015, the East End Women’s Museum has been offered a permanent home in a building in Barking, and is hoping to open its doors in 2022. It first began as a reaction to the opening of a Jack the Ripper Museum in London and is currently the only dedicated women’s museum in the country.

The museum’s aim to to record, research, share and celebrate the stories of the women of East London, both past and present. During its time as a pop-up, it has put on a number of exhibitions, online and at sites around London. It also runs workshops for schools, events and stalls at festivals, and online learning activities.

In a world where women have often been confined to the sidelines of history, the East End Women’s Museum is on a mission to address this imbalance and put them back in the picture, saying:

“East London women’s lives are full of amazing stories; stories of pride, of creativity, of humour, resilience, resourcefulness and resistance – from the Bow Matchwomen’s Strike to the Battle of Cable Street, the Ford Dagenham machinists’ walkout to the Bengali families squatting to improve housing in Spitalfields. We have footballers, inventors, carers, pilots, generals, pirates and more.

“We believe these lives can be inspirational to women and girls today. We believe every woman, past and present, should have a voice. We believe these stories deserve, and need, to be told.”

15 Underwater Ocean Discovery Centre – Busselton, Australia

Busstelton Jetty Underwater Discovery Centre

The new Australian Underwater Discovery Centre is located at Busselton Jetty in Western Australia, an artificial reef featuring more than 300 different marine species, including tropical and sub-tropical corals.

The Australian Underwater Discovery Centre is partially underwater and sits two kilometres out at sea. When it opens its doors at the end of 2022, it will become the world’s largest marine observatory.

Visitors will learn more about the unique marine environment as they explore the attraction’s galleries and exhibition areas above sea level, before descending to an observatory at the level of the ocean floor.

The building’s design, by Baca Architects, represent a whale’s head breaking through the water and was chosen by the local community. As well as educating visitors about marine life and the effects of climate change on the oceans, it will also be home to extensive research facilities.

See also: Underwater attractions: sunken sculpture parks, submerged museums, and undersea dining

16 Ad Gefrin – Wooler, UK

In autumn 2022, a new visitor experience will open at the Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon site in Wooler, Northumberland. The great hall of Ad Gefrin, an Anglo-Saxon royal court, is one of the key archeological discoveries of the 20th century and was found in Yeavering in the 1950s.

An immersive recreation, featuring a combination of artefacts and projected films, will allow guests to discover more about the day-to-day lives of the people who would have lived and worked in the Anglo-Saxon hall. There will also be a bistro bar and gift shop, as well as the county’s first legal whisky distillery in 200 years, the Ad Gefrin whisky distillery.

 

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A post shared by Ad Gefrin (@adgefrin)

“Our immersive AV museum interpretation will invite you into the heart of the Golden Age of the Kingdom of Northumbria – the royal palace of Ad Gefrin – a place of power, ritual, craftsmanship, language and one shaped by nature,” says the attraction’s website.

“We will recreate the Great Halls of the kings and queens of Northumbria and introduce you to them and their followers. It will be their lives and their stories that bring this rich, and largely untold, period of our history to life.”

17 Korean American National Museum – Los Angeles, California, USA

korean-american-national-museum-morphosis-los-angeles new museums 2022

The Korean American National Museum (KANM) was founded in 1991 and opened on a temporary site in LA’s Koreatownand in 1995. It has presented a number of exhibitions exploring Korean and Korean American history and culture, as well as hosting lectures, readings, discussions and screenings.

In 2012, the Museum was granted a long-term lease on a site in Koreatown for the construction of its first permanent venue. In 2019, architecture firm Morphosis created the design for sculptural, plant-covered museum. Morphosis’ founder Thom Mayne, is leading the project along with firm principal Eui-Sung Yi, a Korean-American architect. 

“The Korean American National Museum’s mission is to preserve and interpret the history, experiences, culture and achievements of Americans of Korean ancestry,” says the museum’s website.

“In accomplishing its mission, the Museum works to become a center for cultural exchange and education, a catalyst for sharing ideas and resources, and a center for promoting and celebrating the diversity of culture in this country.

“It is important to the Museum’s mission to help make the Korean American experience vivid and intelligible to other communities and to encourage these groups to find out more about Korean Americans in Los Angeles and elsewhere.”

Image courtesy of the architect

So, there are many exciting new museums to look forward to in 2022. However, there are also several that are reopening or expanding.

For instance, in the UK, visitors will be able to discover the reimagined Burrell Collection in Glasgow. Following a £68m refurbishment and a closure of more than five years, this collection of over 9,000 works of art will be open once more in March 2022.

In addition, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery will open again in April. This Grade II listed building features more than 40 galleries of art, social history, archaeology and ethnography. Manchester Museum will also reopen in late 2022 following a redevelopment project.

birmingham museum and art gallery
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

In Denmark, the country’s Design Museum will complete work on a renovation project in 2022. This will see the addition of a new public plaza to the historic 18th-century venue. In France, the seven-year renovation of Paris’ Musée de Cluny will also be finished this year.

Meanwhile, in the US, the Orange County Museum of Art in California move to a new building. It will be celebrating this with free admission for the next decade. Elsewhere, Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery will reopen following its transformation into the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. This is thanks to a $160m expansion project.

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charlotte coates

Charlotte Coates

Charlotte Coates is blooloop's editor. She is from Brighton, UK and previously worked as a librarian. She has a strong interest in arts, culture and information and graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in English Literature. Charlotte can usually be found either with her head in a book or planning her next travel adventure.

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