The Estonian National Museum; a massive culture/event center that has been a decade in planning and construction, opened its doors this month in the country’s university town of Tartu.
The multi-million euro museum provides a comprehensive showcase of Estonia’s ethnographic history and culture, displaying a large number of high-tech installations as well as artefacts from the 107-year-old institution’s collection.
The project to rehouse the ERM, as the museum is abbreviated in Estonian, is being hailed as the country’s largest architectural undertaking since regaining independence a quarter of a century ago. The building covers an area of 33,876 square meters, with a full 6,134 square meters dedicated to exhibition space
“The opening of this cutting-edge museum adds yet another 5-star attraction to Tartu, which will certainly do a lot to boost the overall number of visitors to the city. But it also represents an interesting new opportunity for event planners thanks to its top-notch reception and meeting facilities,” said Riine Tiigi, Marketing Manager at the Estonian Convention Bureau.
The ERM offers nine function rooms in all, the largest of which can accommodate 250 guests. Event catering services are available from the operators of the museum’s restaurant and café.
Event bookings were already rolling in prior to the museum’s grand opening. International meetings now scheduled to be held at the ERM include the European LEADER Association for Rural Development (ELARD) conference this November, the 11th Triennial Meeting for Conservators of the Baltic States next May, the 14th Finno-Ugric Writers’ Congress in summer 2017 and a 1,000-delegate gathering of the International Bobbin Lace and Needle Lace Organisation in 2020.
Designed by Paris-based architecture firm, DGT, the building sits on a 40-hectare plot of land that was originally the site of a Baltic-German manor and later served as a Soviet air base.
