MANILA, PHILIPPINES — To cap off its 60th anniversary and in time for the festive season, Ayala Foundation has announced the soft opening of Ayala Museum and Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL) on December 4, 2021. Closed for renovation since June 2019, the soft opening will offer a glimpse of the newly renovated museum and library with 5 galleries initially accessible to the public with pre-booked admissions, timed entries, and limited capacity on admissions.
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.
WHAT’S NEW IN THE MUSEUM?
Re-energized Space
The new Ayala Museum will redefine the onsite visitor experience with refreshed exhibition, event, and retail spaces. Designed once again by Leandro V. Locsin Partners (LVLP), it boasts of 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 Well-spring of Stories
A total of five new exhibitions will be unveiled at the soft opening of the new Ayala Museum along with the new Ayala Museum website and the upcoming Ayala Museum app. All these guarantee a well-spring of stories that will provoke curiosity and move people about what is uniquely Filipino.
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 8 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.
Going Omnichannel
With the goal of broadening the appeal of art & culture by making it more accessible, Ayala Museum and Filipinas Heritage Library have adopted the omnichannel approach. Omnichannel is a term derived from retail to describe a visitor-centric approach to ensure customers what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. The move was planned pre-pandemic but the decision to go omnichannel has likewise proven timely with audiences now comfortable being online. As such, everything in the newly renovated Ayala Museum will be networked, multiple channels digitally connected so one can move seamlessly between them, enabling Filipinos here and abroad to readily access Philippine art & culture 24/7, as exemplified by the collections and programming of the museum & library.
The onsite exhibitions will be supported by exclusive content that enriches the viewer’s understanding through the upcoming Ayala Museum app. A newly revamped Ayala Museum portal will be the online destination to (1) book visits (2) participate in workshops, conferences, concerts & performances (3) access the Ayala Museum collection online (4) visit new exhibitions (5) explore learning resources (6) and link up with the stand-alone FHL website.
To learn more about the museum and library’s new protocols, what to expect during the soft opening, and how to book your tickets, you can visit their website at ayalamuseum.org and filipinaslibrary.org.ph.
