The rent will increase by 8 million kronor (about $760,000) a year, on top of the approximately 14 million kronor (about $1.3 million) the museum already pays. The announcement came in April and amounts to a 60 percent rent increase.
The Swedish Museum of Maritime, Transport and Defence History (SMMTF) does not want to extend the lease for its current premises, as Magasin K was first to report. The museum will remain closed indefinitely until new premises are available.
But the rent increase is not the primary reason why we want to close and move. We have big ambitions for the Army Museum, says Lars Amréus.
“Black spots”
Since this spring, the museum has been tasked with covering the entire total defence system. Today there are black spots, according to Amréus - the Army Museum of the future should cover not only civil defence and voluntary organisations, but also modern tanks, artillery and air defence systems.
No new premises have been proposed yet, according to the superintendent, but the staff will remain and, among other things, work on temporary exhibitions.
The Maritime Museum on Djurgården is also to close, but the Swedish National Property Board (SFV) will renovate it and, according to Lars Amréus, an agreement on the future rent is already in place.
Market rents
Recently, the National Museums of World Culture announced that they are recommending the closure of the Mediterranean Museum and the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm due to the sharp rent increase from SFV, whose government mandate is to set market rents.
"It should be remembered that we have not revised the rents for ten years, and that in these areas they have gone up by about 60 percent during that period," Max Elger, director general of SFV, told TT this spring.
Anna Troberg, chair of the trade union DIK (the Swedish Trade Union for Documentation, Information and Culture), describes a “museum slaughter” with “enormous consequences”:
"Unique cultural heritage is at risk of being destroyed, expert competence is lost and the public's access to their history is being hijacked," she writes in an email to TT.
"The situation is urgent. The government and the new parliament must act immediately to save the museums now and for the future."
Facts: Army Museum
Opened in 1879 as the Artillery Museum in Östermalm, Stockholm, in what was once a storage facility for artillery pieces and weapons. It became the Army Museum in 1943. The foundation for today's permanent exhibition was laid in the 1990s. "The Army Museum is in need of a thorough renovation; the exhibitions are more than 25 years old. When we look at it, we see that we will not be able to build a really good museum in the current premises - we have to move," says Superintendent Lars Amréus. At the same time, the museum needs to free up resources to work on this, he emphasizes.
