Back to October 2009 Bilbao Treatment for Baku?  

A golden structure by a Pritzker Prize–winning architect that glistens by day with reflections of water rippling on the bay and shimmers with dramatic illumination at night. Galleries showcasing the achievements of the region’s most talented creators. A restaurant with a view of medieval balconies and other historic architecture in a city that has been for centuries a crossroads of cultures.

This is the concept for the future museum of contemporary art in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, as designed by Jean Nouvel, approved by the government of President Ilham Aliyev, and being shepherded toward realization by Thomas Krens, the former Guggenheim director who is crisscrossing the globe in search of new projects as head of the consulting firm he created, Global Cultural Asset Management (GCAM).

If and when the project, which is still under development, comes to fruition, Azerbaijan will be the latest country, and the first in Eurasia, to adapt the strategy Krens pioneered so successfully in Bilbao—creating an art-filled architectural icon that attracts international prestige and cultural tourism to a place better known in the media for other things, in this case its oil wealth and its repressive government. It would also represent the first post-Guggenheim triumph for Krens, who continues to work with the institution, under the title of Senior Advisor for International Affairs, as a consultant for the branch being built in Abu Dhabi.

GCAM, which is registered in Britain and housed in downtown Manhattan, is primarily devoted to “Museum construction, operation, management, collection building & art investment funds,” according to an online profile posted by its vice president of international development, Nicolas Iljine, who previously worked in corporate development at the Guggenheim. Its team also includes several other former Guggenheim staffers, as well as “international museum curators, economic consultants, market analysts, and world-renowned architects,” according to a request for interns to help with “management support” posted on the Web site of the New York Foundation for the Arts. (Proficiency in Arabic, Asian languages, Spanish, and Russian is desirable, the ad notes.)

Krens did not respond to requests for comment by press time, but he told Elena Siyanko in an interview reprinted in the online journal agitarch that, as with the case of Lithuania—whose representatives approached him, eventually resulting in the development of a museum project designed by Zaha Hadid for Vilnius—Baku was originally not on his radar. He had been in the vicinity a lot, however; he has visited Russia about 120 times and over the years has looked at least 20 different locations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg for a potential kunsthalle, he said. “You do need some sort of stable and visionary context where the leadership that can make the funding available, recognizes this as a strategic priority,” he commented. So when Azerbaijan’s government representatives were persistent in inviting him to visit, he claimed, he felt compelled to take a deeper look. “These people now have the means for the first time to enter the developed world because they have oil resources that are rather astounding,” he told Siyanko in the interview posted in agitarch (which is published by the well-known Russian artist and architect Yuri Avvakumov). Indeed, Nouvel’s office confirmed, the museum’s design will feature symbols making reference to oil.

The contemporary-art museum is one of several museum projects that President Aliyev signed into being with a decree several years ago, among them a museum of independence, a museum of oil, and the renovations of the museum of carpets and the museum of visual arts—all with the strong backing of First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva. The decree stipulated a “new approach” to the activities of the country’s museums according to “international standards” of museum practice, as well as to “Azerbaijan national ideology.” Last spring, the first couple, along with Unesco director-general Koïchiro Matsuura, opened a provisional contemporary-art museum with a collection of more than 800 works by local artists. At the same time, Matsuura presented Azerbaijani artist Tahir Salahov with Unesco’s Picasso Medal for his cultural achievements.

Krens’s vision for Baku, meanwhile, includes not only Nouvel’s museum but also a master plan for the city by the architecture firm Asymptote, one of whose principals, Hani Rashid, has Twittered several reports from his Azerbaijan visits. Though Azerbaijani government officials had not responded to requests for comment at press time, sources say that the costs of the projects, along with other key details, are not yet in place.

GCAM has also been speaking with representatives of Libya, Kazakhstan, and the Russian autonomous region of Khanty-Mansiysk, Krens told Siyanko.

Robin Cembalest is executive editor of ARTnews. Additional reporting by Konstantin Akinsha.