Rijks 2008

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is the closest us Dutch folks can get to a national museum. It’s got the finest collection of art and artefacts from the Golden 17th century in the country and it’s home to the largest collection of paintings by Rembrandt in the world. You can imagine that renovating the 130 year old building takes place in the middle of a storm of public opinion.

Work started in December 2003 and was budgetted at 500 million euro. Planning has been revised several times and reopening is currently scheduled for 2012, prompting Amsterdam citizens to joke which will be finished first: the Rijks or the new subway line.

Besides an underground extension by Spanish architects Cruz and Ortiz, the eleborate decoration scheme as designed by the catholic architect Pierre Cuypers is painstakingly being restored. (Being catholic was considered a handicap in 19th century protestant society, to such extends that King William refused to attend the opening ceremony of the museum in 1885).

Although an edited best-of exhibition is permanently on display in the small south wing, the main building has been off limits for anyone without a hard-hat for 5 years now. During summer holidays however the general public are allowed to admire the progress of dozens of undergraduates of the restoration school.

Although prohibited I managed to take some snapshots when the guards weren’t looking. Without using a flash ofcourse, which you should NEVER EVER use inside a museum. Grrr…!