New Entrance Building, Van Gogh Museum

"It has been delivered within the tight eighteen-month deadline, and on budget. The all-glass entrance hall features high-quality structural engineering and systems, with modern walls and flooring. There is a spacious, well-lit foyer with cloakrooms and a revamped museum shop stocked with more than 500 new products. Improved access, better logistics and more space will allow us to give our visitors a much warmer welcome than before. Moreover, this arrangement better suits the upgraded Museumplein – all its cultural institutions now have their entrances facing the square. The transparent building with its state-of-the-art glass structure enriches both the Van Gogh Museum and Museumplein."

By enclosing the empty "sunken pond" on its Museumplein side, the Van Gogh Museum has gained 800 square meters of floor space. This new entrance hall offers numerous benefits. The neighbouring Stedelijk Museum and Rijksmuseum have recently relocated their main entrances to face Museumplein, and now the Van Gogh Museum is following suit. 

The new glass structure is also positioned conveniently between the original museum building designed by Gerrit Rietveld and the more recent temporary exhibitions wing, providing better access to and between them. The additional 800 square meters will improve visitor flows and create more room to welcome and assist them. The museum is now better equipped to cope with the expected future rise in visitor numbers. And the entrance hall has a flexible layout, allowing it to host gatherings and receptions of various sizes. 

Outside the museum, on Willem Sandbergplein – which separates it from the Stedelijk Museum – the City of Amsterdam has created a waiting area where visitors who have not purchased their tickets in advance can buy them at one of the new ticket desks. 

The open and – literally – transparent entrance hall has been built using the very latest glass construction techniques and contrasts wonderfully with the solid outer wall of the temporary exhibitions wing. Its frontage consists of 650 square meters of cold bent glass, with 30 so- called "roof fins" – also in glass and up to 12 meters in length – and 20 glass columns up to 9.4 meters high, all mounted on a load-bearing structure containing 65 tons of steel. 

Visitors descend from the street-level entrance to the sunken foyer by a magnificent glass staircase, an illuminated escalator or a glazed panoramic lift. In the foyer are a cloakroom with space for 2,200 coats and 1,700 bags, an array of 1,450 audio tours and a brand new museum shop. This is selling some 500 exclusive new products, created in collaboration with leading local and international luxury brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Gassan Diamonds, SMAAK and Pommery, or by Dutch designers inspired by Van Gogh and his work. They include Hester van Eeghen, Tord Boontje, Edward van Vliet and Droog Design. 

The draft design for the new entrance hall was prepared by Kisho Kurokawa Architect and Associates, the firm founded by the late Kisho Kurokawa, designer of the temporary exhibitions wing opened in 1999. Hans van Heeswijk Architecten then elaborated on this to create a solution in which the existing wing and the new structure form a surprising new whole. 

PROJECT FACTS

Design: 2012-2014
Construction: 2014-2015
Opening: 5 September 2015
Surface area original structure: Rietveld Building plus Exhibition Wing: circa 14,200 sm    
Surface area New Entrance Building: 975 sm incl. entrance platform    
Total surface area new building: Circa 15,175 sm    
Architect Van Gogh Museum: Gerrit Rietveld/Joan van Dillen/Johan van Tricht, 1973 (Paulus Potterstraat building)
Architect Renovation Rietveld Building: Martien van Goor (Greiner Van Goor Architecten) Amsterdam, 1999 
Architect Exhibition Wing: Kisho Kurokawa, Tokyo 1999
Design concept New Entrance Building: Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates, Tokyo 2012
Co-architect New Entrance Building: Hans van Heeswijk Architects, Amsterdam 2015    
Project team: Jasper Druijven, Richard Gouverneur, Stephanie Haumann, Hans van Heeswijk, Rob Hulst, Ronno Stegeman en
Boaz van der Wal

Client: Van Gogh Museum Foundation
Contractor: Central Government Real Estate Agency, The Hague
Location: Museumplein 6, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Structural consultant: Arcadis Nederland, Rotterdam
M&E consultant: Deerns Raadgevende Ingenieurs, Rijswijk
Building physics consultant: DGMR, The Hague
Logistics consultant: Theateradvies, Amsterdam
Lighting consultant: Hans Wolff & Partners/Lighting Designers, Amsterdam