/ Buildings / Voorlinden Museum Opens its Doors in the Netherlands

Voorlinden Museum Opens its Doors in the Netherlands

Parul Dubey on September 15, 2016 - in Buildings

King Willem-Alexander has officially opened Voorlinden Museum in Wassenaar to the public. Since 2011 we have worked providing multidisciplinary services to the concept designed by Kraaijvanger Architects.

Designed in close collaboration with Dutch museum owner Joop van Caldenborgh, the new museum displays his collection of contemporary art through a modern but classical building with symmetrical shape and generous dimensions.

The design consists of six parallel walls in the landscape allowing the interior to open to the environment. An elegant white colonnade bears the ingenious roof structure and the façade alternates dune sand-colored stone and thin glass fronts.

The interior was designed in three parts to accommodate different programs: collection presentations, temporary exhibitions and permanent works. It includes twenty day lit exhibition spaces, an auditorium, a library, educational space, a restoration workshop and a museum shop. Arup was responsible for all building services related to the inner climate and museum experience, such as lighting, mechanical and electrical engineering, fire safety, building physics and acoustics.

Arup provided the daylight design for Museum Voorlinden, where the natural light indirectly falls inward in a unique way through 115,000 angled cut tubes located over the entire roof. A velum and transparent glass roof, which includes indirect led light, ensures a well-dosed and almost magical light shines on the art on both sunny days and at night, in every season.

To have an optimal museum experience in balance with the indoor climate requirements for the art Arup developed installations which are totally integrated in the architecture and not distracting. The best example of this is the invisible escape route marking which is only visible when it is active in an emergency situation.

“A visit to Voorlinden is a unique experience. Although the whole museum is focusing on the wonderful art collection at display, a visit is so much more. Situated in beautiful natural surroundings, each visit to the museum is different because of the seasonal variations in flora and the daily variation in intensity and color of the daylight. It made the Arup team very happy and proud that we could contribute to this.”

—Joop Paul, Project Director, Arup Netherlands

The attention to detail was not restricted to the exhibition spaces, even the installation rooms are a work of art.

“Van Caldenborgh might just be most proud of the 700 m2 basement of the museum, where the climate control system is located. That too was sleekly designed. (…) “When you have the opportunity to do something well, you should.”

—Joop van Caldenborgh, NRC Handelsblad

Comments are disabled