Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
The Netherlands' museum of modern and contemporary art and design, behind a white 'bathtub' wing.
The Stedelijk Museum is the Netherlands' principal museum of modern and contemporary art and design. Founded in 1874 and housed on Museumplein since 1895, it holds roughly 90,000 objects spanning painting, sculpture, photography, graphic and industrial design, film and new media from about 1880 onwards. Particular strengths include De Stijl, the Russian avant-garde, CoBrA, post-war American painting and Pop art, alongside a design collection that traces Dutch and international furniture, posters and everyday objects.
The original neo-Renaissance building was designed by Adriaan Willem Weissman and opened in 1895. After a lengthy closure for renovation, the museum reopened in 2012 with an extension by Benthem Crouwel Architects: a smooth white volume clad in composite fibre that cantilevers over a new entrance facing Museum Square and is widely nicknamed the bathtub. The addition roughly doubled the exhibition space, added underground galleries and moved the main entrance from Paulus Potterstraat to the square.
Highlights
- Major holdings of Malevich, among the largest outside Russia
- De Stijl works by Mondrian, Rietveld and Van Doesburg
- Benthem Crouwel's white composite 'bathtub' wing of 2012
- Design collection of furniture, posters and industrial objects
