The jewelry museum in Malaga was opened with empty halls

The jewelry museum in Malaga was opened with empty halls

Malaga is one of the richest in museums cities of Andalusia. In addition to the iconic Picasso Museum, there is a huge variety of exhibitions. Among them are Automobile Museum, Wine Museum, Puppet Museum and the Museum of Glass.

On January 19, 2011 in Malaga was opened another symbolic museum. It is a museum of jewels Art Natura Malaga. However, one of the most anticipated museum openings of Andalusia was funny. Museum of Jewelry began its work without the exposure.

It was expected that the Art Natura Malaga museum will be another magnet that will attract the attention of tourists to Malaga. In the territory of former tobacco factory Tabacalera should have been organized a unique exhibition of jewels. The core exhibits had to be 22 rare minerals unique by its size, quality and purity. In particular, it was supposed to present here the world's largest faceted topaz "El Dorado", the 301-carat Jaipur brilliant and others.

In addition to jewels exposition of Art Natura Malaga should have included about 300 figurines and furnishings made from sapphire, diamond, opal and aquamarines. Also the museum's collection had to include the works of genius Gaudi, which had never been exhibited ever before.

Nevertheless, the great idea has met on its way unexpected bureaucratic obstacles. In particular, Royal Collections company, which acts as the owner of a large part of the exposition, failed to sign a final agreement on the ownership of the building of the former tobacco factory. According to the typicallyspanish.com, it was planned that the municipality of Malaga would pass the building to the Royal Collections in 2008. However, transfer of the building did not occur, and therefore Royal Collections appealed to the Malaga City Hall with a proposal to revoke the previous agreements. Nevertheless, the court decided to keep the contract in force. As a result Royal Collections has decided to open a museum without exposition.

Thus, today visitors of the museum can walk along the corridors of Art Natura Malaga and see broken elevators, escalators, and a small number of cameras and special security doors. It is worth noting that, according to the Royal Collections representative Fulgencio Alcaraz, the total cost of reconstruction and modernization of the museum building was about 40 million Euros.

Ilya Kalachev

Date: 22/01/2012