Renovación del Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam NL
Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos
2013
Tipo
Museo
Etiquetas
renovaciones, infraestructuras culturales , instituciones culturales globales, intervenciones en el patrimonio, espacios del arte , 200Best
Visitabilidad
Visitable
Descripción
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was designed in the late nineteenth century by Dutch architect Pieter Cuypers. The function of the building was twofold: one part was the national museum, the other the gateway to the south of Amsterdam.The museum use has paid an overly high price for its urban role as a connecting element between what was then the existing city –to the North– and the newer developments towards the South. A walkway - virtually a street - runs through the building from North to South splitting it in two parts, necessitating two entrances –both towards the North– and two main staircases; this means that only on the first floor are the Eastern and Western parts of the building are joined, while the ground floor and basement are divided.The need for exhibition space has meant building within the courtyards which led to a lack of natural light. This also brought to a kind of labyrinth in which the visitor is given no information concerning their whereabouts.The intervention on the building was, initially, meant to open up a new and unique entrance to the museum admission in the central passage hall, and secondly, to recover the courtyards and exhibition spaces, regaining somewhat their original state, or at least their dimensions.The large space generated by opening and connecting courtyards houses all essential uses for visitors, and offers a suitable space on the scale that the grandeur of the building deserves. You enter this hall from the passageway, and then tours to the exhibition areas start at this point, linking with the original grand stairs.In the new space created, natural limestone has been used. The courtyards are connected under the passage. On each of them a structure with an acoustic and lighting mission has been suspended: ‘the chandeliers’.(Description provided by the architects)