Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the MVRDV-design publicly accessible art depot, has a completed construction. Located in Rotterdam's Museumpark, the depot offers a unique experience for museum goers in the form of a "sturdy" engine room where the complete collection 151,000 objects is made accessible to the public. Additionally, the depot includes a restaurant and rooftop forest.
"With this construction completion, now the museum and the users can start to inhabit the building and fill its spaces with priceless art," said Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV in a statement. "Although it will take another year before the real opening, the completion is a special moment for all: the museum, the city of Rotterdam, Stichting De Verre Bergen and of course for the contractor BAM, the many construction workers and subcontractors who persisted during the difficult circumstances we all faced due to the pandemic. The depot design is daring, and its success comes from the direct dialogue with all parties involved – from the person calculating the exact curvature of the mirroring panels and the construction worker who put up the glass vitrines to the company that co-designed our rooftop forest."
The bowl-like structure is comprised of 6,609 square meters of glass subdivided into 1,664 mirrored panels, giving the building a camouflaged quality. Whether passerby, surrounding landscape, clouds, or the dynamic city skyline, the Depot offers a reflection complementary to its location.
Within the facility, each storage space is climate controlled and organized into five different climate zones, arranged according to works of art produced with different materials: metal, plastic, organic/inorganic, and photography. Moreover, the atrium of the structure is dressed with crisscrossing staircases and suspended glass display cases that will hold future exhibitions.
“This is a working building in which the most important consideration is what the building can do: to look after our collection while still being open to the public," said Sjarel Ex and Ina Klaasen, directors of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in a statement. "Next year the entire collection of Boijmans Van Beuningen will once again be visible on one spot for the first time since 1935. We are convinced that making the collection accessible shows how much we care and how well we take care of it. This is something that the inhabitants of Rotterdam will be proud of; something that they want to see with their own eyes, because they partly own this enormous artistic treasure."
The museum is due to open in fall of 2021.
5 Comments
Someone stick a mixing spoon in there and we'll make up a big batch of cake!
Dibs on the extra frosting!
lol. wait til they show the front doors for this thing. They are amazingly beautiful.
only thing i miss in this design is the blandness of the interior. It is for a reason, but feels jarring after the powerful presence outside...
This is going make Trump's ass look, wait for it; yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggge!
actually, a convex mirror makes things look smaller
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