The state-of-the-art gallery space for the new Guggenheim Hermitage Museum is within the elaborate structure of Las Vegas's Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino. This enclosed exhibition space houses masterworks from the Guggenheim and Hermitage museums in a unique setting. The museum's exterior and interior walls have been constructed with panels of Cor-Ten steel, which has never before been used as the structure of a museum gallery. The lightly textured industrial metal is intended to evoke the traditional velvet walls of the Hermitage Museum while providing a stark modern contrast to the ornate architecture of The Venetian.

The museum was designed by architect Rem Koolhaas who established the influential Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in 1980. His projects range in scale from innovative private residences to ambitious urban redevelopment plans, including libraries, museums, and corporate headquarters. His most famous buildings include the Maison à Bordeaux (1998), the Kunsthal (Rotterdam, 1992), Nexus Housing (Fukuoka, 1991), and the Educatorium (Utrecht, 1997). Future projects include the Seattle Public Library and Prada retail stores. Koolhaas is the recipient of the Pritzker Prize 2000, architecture's equivalent to the Nobel Prize, and the Légion d'Honneur in 2001. He has published the acclaimed books Delirious New York (1978) and S M L XL (1995) and currently teaches at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.