The Filipino collector Robbie Antonio has developed an ambitious plan to bring prefab museums to the masses.
Filipino art collector and real estate developer Robbie Antonio has unveiled a radical new plan for prefabricated structures designed to house and display art. He has teamed up with Pritzker Prize-winning French architects Jean Nouvel and Christian de Portzamparc to create a series of so-called “reproducible museums.” For less than $1 million, an aspiring Eli Broad can build his own institution in as little as six months.
He says the audience for his new product “could be a business that wants to put a museum on their land, or a collector who literally wants to house his or her collection, or a government or country that does’t have a museum but wants to collect art.”
In recent years, Antonio has introduced a series of modular prefab homes designed by famous architects, artists and designers, including Zaha Hadid, David Salle, Ron Arad, and Studio Libeskind. The business is growing: in the Mt Batulao area of the Philippines alone, he has plans to supply and co-develop over 1,050 homes at prices ranging roughly from $80,000 to $540,000.
