This past September, Chapman Taylor Architecture announced the opening of Almaty Museum of Arts, a landmark cultural institution dedicated to contemporary art in Central Asia and internationally. Almaty, with about 2 million residents, is Kazakhstan’s largest city, in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains.

© Alexey Naroditsky

The museum is located on a prominent city center site at the intersection between Al-Farabi Avenue and Nazarbayev Avenue. A new Ballet Theatre is being constructed adjacent to the museum, which will create a new cultural quarter for the city. The 108,000-square-foot museum is inspired by the dramatic contrast between Almaty’s stunning mountainous backdrop and its urban setting. Details of Almaty’s terrain are brought into the architecture, expressed through two interconnecting limestone and aluminum-clad structures housing a wide variety of galleries accessed from a dramatic, central light-filled atrium known as Art Street.

Almaty Museum of Arts has become a major cultural and social hub since it opened just a few months ago. It offers an unparalleled platform for Central Asian art alongside international works.

© Alexey Naroditsky

The museum incorporates permanent and temporary exhibition galleries, dedicated rooms for featured artists, art education workshops, and a flexible performance and theater space. At its heart lies a central, enclosed “Art Street,” which seamlessly extends into a network of terraces, plazas and landscaped public spaces designed for social gatherings and outdoor art installations. More than just a gallery, Almaty Museum of Arts is envisioned as a living cultural platform, a place where past and present, regional and global, converge.

The museum exhibits the work of international contemporary artists, and 20^th-century Central Asian art from the collection of Nurlan Smagulov, a prominent Kazakh entrepreneur, philanthropist and founder of Almaty Museum of Arts. As Central Asia’s first private museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art, the museum will also showcase works from Kazakh pioneers like Aisha Galimbayeva and Rustam Khalfin, as well as global icons such as Yayoi Kusama, Anselm Kiefer, Richard Serra and Bill Viola. Newly commissioned outdoor sculptures by Yinka Shonibare, Alicja Kwade and Jaume Plensa will shortly be available, if not already installed.

© Alexey Naroditsky

The museum’s inaugural program includes the first retrospective of pioneering Kazakh artist Almagul Menlibayeva, the collection-based exhibition Qonaqtar, and a series of live performances and cultural events inspired by Central Asia’s oral traditions. Visitors can experience dedicated Artist Rooms, featuring major works by Richard Serra and Yinka Shonibare.