The Rijksmuseum, Reborn
By GERALDINE FABRIKANT
AMSTERDAM
ON a wet day in mid-January, Wim Pijbes, the dapper general director of the Rijksmuseum, was showing a visitor a bit of the newly reconfigured institution that has long housed masterworks from the Netherlands’ wealth of grand artists.
Suddenly Mr. Pijbes, standing near the open walkway that will allow the country’s fanatical bicyclists to continue riding through it on their way around Amsterdam, saw something he didn’t like. City workers were starting to demolish parts of the street that is the roof of the underground entrance. Excusing himself, he raced to confer with some yellow-jacketed workers.
It was just the latest in a series of difficulties that have dogged the museum since the national government’s decision more than 10 years ago to upgrade and remodel the museum — a program that has ended up costing nearly $500 million.
The problems will have to be solved by April 13, when the 80-room museum, home to works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, van Gogh and hundreds of other artists, finally reopens at a black-tie gala hosted by Queen Beatrix at one of her last official events before she abdicates at the end of that month.
Mr. Pijbes and his staff say they believe that the renovated museum will attract two million visitors annually, roughly double the number who have been showing up yearly — even recently, when just 400 works remained on display.
But the Rijksmuseum is not the only new offering in Amsterdam, where government and private entities including Amsterdam Marketing are pushing hard to make the city a destination for more than students looking for the louche life or one-time visits by tourists who come to see the Rembrandts and van Goghs before rushing off to Paris or London. The marketing company, which spends about $16 million annually — one-third of that from the city and the balance from museums, hotels and restaurants — is spending an extra $3.6 million this year, according to its director, Frans van der Avert.
Over all, the national and city governments and private investors have spent about $1.3 billion to revamp the Stedelijk, the city’s modern art museum; the National Maritime Museum, which reopened with a glamorous glass-enclosed central courtyard and new exhibits; and other cultural centers in Amsterdam, including the Rijksmuseum.
Across town the cultural expansion includes a gleaming 10-story public library designed by the Dutch architect Jo Coenen that opened in 2007 at a cost of over $100 million. The largest public library in Europe, it is complete with a floor designed to appeal to young readers and a cafeteria overlooking the city.
Even the Van Gogh Museum, which is privately owned, has closed for modest upgrades and will reopen in the spring. Until then visitors can see the van Goghs at the Hermitage, an extension of the St. Petersburg museum in Russia that opened in 2009.
“We earned a lot of money in the 1990s and the first part of the new millennium,” said Carolien Gehrels, the deputy mayor responsible for arts, culture and economic affairs. “We had a prosperous time and decided to invest in arts and culture.”
Private money has paid for some improvements. The sleek new Eye Film Institute opened last April and attracted 38,000 visitors in its first week. That building was financed by ING Real Estate, but according to its press officer, Marnix van Wijk, government sources agreed to assume responsibility for rent payments over the next 25 years. That is in part because it is the national film archive, and among other activities it promotes Dutch films for Academy Awards.
Beyond museums, the infrastructure to help support cultural appetites has been expanding. The chic new Conservatorium Hotel has just opened in a 19th-century bank building opposite the Stedelijk; the grand old Hotel de L’Europe has been upgraded; the Andaz, a Hyatt hotel, has just opened; and the Amsterdam Marriott is offering special packages related to the city’s expanding cultural life.
All this upgrading is not without risks. The Stedelijk has received mixed reviews. The expanded building, designed by the Dutch firm Benthem Crouwel and termed “the Bathtub,” has been criticized in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Nevertheless, the director, Ann Goldstein, who joined the museum in 2010 from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, said the museum had 300,000 visitors in the fourth quarter. Before it closed in 2004 for remodeling, it had sometimes drawn 400,000 guests over a year.
No one expected that the Rijksmuseum renovation would take a decade. Modernization was slowed by, among other things, asbestos, budget problems and resistance from bicyclists, who objected to closing the route through the arch to the Museumplein, the park on which the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh and the Stedelijk sit.
While the exterior of the Stedelijk has drawn criticism, the architects for the Rijksmuseum have avoided controversy by leaving the familiar exterior largely untouched. It continues to mimic its cousin building, the vast Amsterdam central railway station, also designed by Pierre Cuypers. The railway station now sits virtually adjacent to the new and very modern library, a placement that blends old and new Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam, where space is at a premium, it is noteworthy that relatively little has been added in the heart of the city’s museum center. At the Rijksmuseum, as in the case of the Louvre, architects had to go underground to ease access and to modernize the entrance without tampering with the exterior. So Cruz y Ortiz, the Spanish firm responsible for the redesign, transformed the lower level into a two-story-high entrance.
It seems as if the appetite to expand has spilled over into other Dutch cities. The Mauritshuis in The Hague, best known for its collection of Vermeers and other Golden Age artists, is adding another building that will double its exhibition space.
All this activity presupposes that government officials, private investors and museum curators in the Netherlands are hoping for yet another golden age.
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