Kadriorg Palace – first home of the Art Museum of Estonia 05/11/2025 | 18:00

On 17 November, the Art Museum of Estonia turns 106! A lecture-tour, enriched with historical photos, introduces the birth of the Art Museum of Estonia and Kadriorg Palace as the first location of the museum.

The fate of Kadriorg Palace, which had been left ownerless after the overthrow of Tsarist rule in the Russian Empire, was decided in 1919, when the palace began to be considered a museum. Initially, both ethnographic material and works of art were collected and exhibited, and the displays included beer stains and carpets, as well as altarpieces and marble sculptures. Since the Estonian National Museum, which specialised in ethnographic material and folk art, was already operating in Tartu, the focus of the Tallinn museum’s activities became fine and applied art beginning in 1925. Kadriorg Palace was renovated, and electricity and central heating were introduced to the building. The first museum exhibition dedicated solely to art was opened in 1927. The following decades transformed the palace into a representative building and forced the museum to find new premises, but in 1946 Kadriorg Palace once again became a home for art.
On a tour through the rooms and exhibitions of the current Kadriorg Art Museum, we admire the castle and try to imagine how the museum was created and has been re-designed throughout the 20th century.