On the 50th anniversary of Rundāle Palace Museum, a varied programme of events and several novelties are planned. This week, film chronicles will be screened, while an exhibition on the museum’s achievements in the study of Latvian architecture and art will launch in the autumn, followed by a scientific conference dedicated to the theme of the exhibition.
“For Rundāle Palace, 50 years as an independent museum is both a lot and a little. There has been enough time to complete the most important restoration processes and to revitalise the Museum, while at the same time being aware that there are no days off in maintaining a cultural monument, and the work continues. However, it is also a point of reference that allows us to appreciate the Museum’s extensive contribution to the research and conservation of Latvian monuments of art and architecture. With the Museum’s chronicle and the anniversary exhibition planned for autumn, we want to tell more about this aspect of the Museum’s work,” says Laura Lūse, Director of the Rundāle Palace Museum.
As well as reflecting on what has been achieved, the Museum is also thinking about a contemporary offer for visitors. From 24 May, the Museum’s exhibition and the French Garden will be accessible via a “digital guide”. Annotations will be replaced by digital boards in the exhibition halls, and a new website will be launched digitalaisgids.rundale.net. Visitors will thus be able to find out the most interesting historical facts and information about the Museum’s exhibits. The digital guide is currently available in Latvian and English. Most features are also available in German, Russian and Lithuanian, nonetheless the “digital guide” will be extended in these languages over time. The narration of the Digital Guide is provided in Latvian by actors Kaspars Znotiņš, Marija Linarte and Zane Daudziņa, and in Russian by actors Jurijs Djakonovs and Jekaterina Frolova.
This significant anniversary is also a point of reference for current and former Museum staff, looking back on 50 years of achievements and experiences at the Museum. In view of the events in Ukraine, the foundation stone laying ceremony on 24 May will be celebrated in a subdued and small circle: during the day, former staff members will visit the palace, and in the evening a performance of Johann Adam Hiller’s opera “Love in the Countryside” is planned, to which the Museum has invited Ukrainian residents and their supporters in Latvia.
In the anniversary year of the Museum, several activities for a wide range of visitors are also planned. From 25 to 29 May, during the Museum’s opening hours, visitors will be offered free screenings of film chronicles and documentary film excerpts from different periods, showing Rundāle Palace and its surroundings, restoration works and employees at various festive occasions. The oldest video in the programme is a newsreel fragment showing Rundāle Palace in 1926, and the programme is rounded off by a newsreel from 1993 documenting the visit of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark to Rundāle Palace and her reception in the Gold Hall.
The chronicle of the museum’s events can also be followed on the Museum’s website, in the “Museum 50” section. It lists the most important events in the Museum’s life over the years and features historical images with newly acquired museum objects, as well as scenes from restoration work and everyday life. Currently, the website covers the period from the Museum’s beginnings in 1964 to 1976. By the end of the year, a full chronicle of the Museum’s events will be available on the website.
The main anniversary events are planned for autumn. On 30 September, the Rundāle Palace Museum will launch an exhibition “The Door to History. Rundāle Palace in Architecture and Art Research”. During its existence, the employees of the Rundāle Palace Museum have organised more than 150 expeditions to Latvian manors, castles, churches and other architectural monuments. The progress and results of these expeditions will be presented in the exhibition, with a special focus on examples of good practice in the research and restoration of Latvian manors, palaces and sacred buildings. One of the exhibition rooms will be dedicated to the palaces of the Biron family of the Dukes of Courland in Luste, Svēte, Vircava, Zaļenieki and Jelgava, displaying some of the finishing details and objects preserved in the collection of the Rundāle Palace Museum, as well as photographs of the condition of the palaces at different times.
After the launch of the exhibition, on 21 October, a scientific conference on the theme of the exhibition will be held, which will discuss the latest research and discoveries in the study of Latvian architecture, fine arts and crafts from the 16th century to the early 20th century.
The Rundāle Palace Museum began its work as an independent structural unit on 2 January 1972. For eight years before that, it operated as a branch of the Bauska Local History and Art Museum. The past 50 years of the Museum’s existence have enabled it to achieve its main goals: restoration of the Palace premises, artistic restoration of the Museum’s interiors, furnishing the premises with art and household objects appropriate to the time of the Dukes, and restoration of the Baroque-style French Garden, preserving the original layout by architect Francesco Rastrelli.
The 50th anniversary of the Museum is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation. The creation of the “Digital Guide” was funded by the State Culture Capital Foundation Programme “KultūrElpa”.