Mexico, March 02: The world’s richest man, telecom tycoon Carlos Slim, is opening a new museum in Mexico City where he plans to share his vast collection of fine art and collectables with the public without charging visitors a single peso.
Reporters got an early glimpse today of the new Soumaya Museum, named after the late wife of Slim – whose fortune was estimated at $US53.5 billion by Forbes magazine last year, topping Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett.
Admission is to be free at the museum, which will open to the public on March 29. It will display a rotating selection of Slim’s 66,000 artworks, including pieces by Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo, as well as European masters.
Slim is said to especially admire Auguste Rodin, and his collection of the French sculptor’s work is one of the largest outside France.
Designed by Slim’s architect son-in-law, Fernando Romero, the six-storey, anvil-shaped building cuts a dramatic arc through the skyline of the capital’s upscale Polanco district. Some 16,000 aluminum panels make up the museum’s bending exterior, reflecting sunlight onto broad stairs leading to the entrance.
Inside, the Soumaya features 117,000 square metres of exhibition space encompassing six halls.
One hall will house Slim’s collection of coins, bills, gold and silver, for the first time on display to the public. The others will showcase his collection of portraits, fashion and furniture; works by European masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and El Greco; 19th- and 20th-century paintings by Monet, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh; a selection of Mesoamerican art; and, finally, more contemporary works by the likes of Salvador Dali.
It replaces a smaller museum, also named Soumaya, in southern Mexico City.
Slim, 71, is the son of a Lebanese-born merchant whose conglomerate of retail, telecom, manufacturing and construction companies dominates Mexico’s commercial landscape.
So vast is his empire that it is common for Mexicans to find themselves talking over a Slim-operated mobile phone at a Slim-owned shopping centre while waiting to pay a bill to a Slim-owned company at a Slim-owned bank. If the queue is too long, they can catch a quick coffee at a Slim-owned restaurant.
His Telmex telephone company controls 83 per cent of landlines in Mexico and is the leading internet service provider. Another of his companies is the top mobile phone operator. He also controls the Sears and Saks retail operations in Mexico.
In 2009, he announced a $US250 million investment in The New York Times.
———Agencies