Erarta

Website and mobile app for the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art

About the client

Erarta is the largest private museum of contemporary art in Russia. Its permanent collection includes over 2800 items of painting, photography, sculpture, and installations. The museum organizes unique exhibitions and events monthly.

Task

The museum's website was outdated and needed to be replaced with a new one. By that time, Erarta had become not just a museum but an entire ecosystem with an art goods store and a restaurant.

A contemporary museum required an equally relevant and fresh website design that would speak the same language as the audience. It was also necessary to add a personal account for users and enable them to make purchases online.

Solution

It was important for the client to get a flexible website in terms of making changes. Therefore, we chose the 1C-Bitrix admin panel and designed a reliable website with scalable architecture.

We integrated all of Erarta's internal services and created a personal account for users. We separately ensured that the website worked quickly despite the large number of images and videos.

We created native mobile apps for iOS and Android, which fully replicate the functionality of the web version and additionally feature an interactive museum map.

Modified navigation

The homepage has no unnecessary elements. Only current exhibitions and museum news.

The menu contains all the museum's main projects, between which it's easy to navigate in just a couple of clicks.

Ticket purchase on the website

The museum is popular, and there have been cases where the queue at the ticket office started on the museum steps. To solve this problem, we integrated a payment system for convenient online ticket purchases. The user only needs to select the desired ticket type and pay for it on the way to the museum.

Combined all museum capabilities in one place

Authorized users can check their ticket validity, renew it with maximum benefit, and also use other personal account features.

For example, one can learn about museum events, get an audio guide, or vote in the annual Erarta award.

Erarta Shop online store

We transferred the entire offline store assortment to one of the website tabs, and the selection here is much larger. One can order painting reproductions, interior items, souvenirs, and artworks.

When choosing, one can always consult a store employee right here, in the support chat on the website tab. They will suggest the best options within your budget. By the way, goods are delivered worldwide.

Created the Erarta restaurant page

For the Erarta restaurant, we created a concise page in accordance with the museum's corporate style. On the page, one can view the menu and book a table without calling.

One can also submit an application to participate in a special museum project where one can meet exhibition curators at one table.

Technical support and security

We have been supporting and developing the website since 2018. We use best practices to enhance security measures, but unforeseen situations occur.

For example, in 2022, many websites were subjected to a targeted cyberattack: they were hacked, and access to the website content became blocked. Instead of simply rolling back all changes, we conducted our own investigation.

As a result, we restored the timeline of events second by second and understood exactly how the attackers gained access to the website. It turned out to be a vulnerability in one of the Bitrix components that allowed full control over the website. We made re-exploitation of the vulnerability impossible, and then, thanks to regular backups, quickly restored the website to its original state.

We also took care of other clients who had Bitrix integration in their projects and preemptively took measures to prevent hacks on their websites.