Museum Voorlinden Wassenaar, Holland Building Design, Joop van Caldenborgh NL, Architects, Images, Project

Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar

Dutch Architecture Development: New Building – design by Kraaijvanger Architects in The Netherlands

10 May 2018

Award for Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar

RIBA Awards for International Excellence 2018

Address: Buurtweg 90, 2244 AG Wassenaar, Netherlands

Phone: +31 70 512 1660

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the winners of the RIBA Awards for International Excellence and the 2018 RIBA International Emerging Architect, including this new 7,000m² museum for contemporary art, sitting within the grounds of an early twentieth century, ‘Dutch Arts & Crafts’ countryhouse.

photo © Ronald Tilleman

Award for Museum Voorlinden

20 Sep 2016

Voorlinden Museum Building, Wassenaar

Location: Wassenaar, province of South Holland. western Netherlands

Design: Kraaijvanger Architects with Arup

Voorlinden Museum opens its doors in the Netherlands

King Willem-Alexander has officially opened Voorlinden Museum in Wassenaar to the public.

Designed in close collaboration with Dutch museum owner Joop van Caldenborgh, the new museum displays his collection of contemporary art through a modern but classical building with symmetrical shape and generous dimensions.

exterior image: Pietro Savorellit

The Museum Voorlinden building design consists of six parallel walls in the landscape allowing the interior to open to the environment. An elegant white colonnade bears the ingenious roof structure and the façade alternates dune sand-colored stone and thin glass fronts.

Bibliotheek – Library designed by Andrea Milani:

photograph : Pietro Savorellit

The interior was designed in three parts to accommodate different programs: collection presentations, temporary exhibitions and permanent works. It includes twenty day lit exhibition spaces, an auditorium, a library, educational space, a restoration workshop and a museum shop. Arup was responsible for all building services related to the inner climate and museum experience, such as lighting, mechanical and electrical engineering, fire safety, building physics and acoustics.

Richard Serra (1938) Open Ended (2007-2008):

photo : Antoine van Kaam

Arup provided the daylight design for Museum Voorlinden, where the natural light indirectly falls inward in a unique way through 115,000 angled cut tubes located over the entire roof. A velum and transparent glass roof, which includes indirect led light, ensures a well-dosed and almost magical light shines on the art on both sunny days and at night, in every season.

To have an optimal museum experience in balance with the indoor climate requirements for the art Arup developed installations which are totally integrated in the architecture and not distracting. The best example of this is the invisible escape route marking which is only visible when it is active in an emergency situation.

Museum Voorlinden Garden designed by Piet Oudolf:

“A visit to Voorlinden is a unique experience. Although the whole museum is focusing on the wonderful art collection at display, a visit is so much more. Situated in beautiful natural surroundings, each visit to the museum is different because of the seasonal variations in flora and the daily variation in intensity and color of the daylight. It made the Arup team very happy and proud that we could contribute to this.”
—Joop Paul, Project Director, Arup Netherlands

The attention to detail was not restricted to the exhibition spaces, even the installation rooms are a work of art.

“Van Caldenborgh might just be most proud of the 700 m2 basement of the museum, where the climate control system is located. That too was sleekly designed. (…) “When you have the opportunity to do something well, you should.”
—Joop van Caldenborgh, NRC Handelsblad

“Light plays a key part in the design of this building as variations in the intensity and colour of daylight flowing in through the glass roof, to create a unique atmosphere in the museum every day. Given the constraints of art conservation, an external sun shading canopy based on the solar geometry of Wassenaar has been engineered to keep out direct sun whilst allowing skylight and reflected sunlight to enter. The result is a uniform but dynamic light in all the art spaces.”
—Andrew Sedgwick, Director, Arup

Since 2011 Arup have worked providing multidisciplinary services to the concept designed by Kraaijvanger Architects.

interior photo of Roni Horn’s work by Antoine van Kaam

About Arup
Arup is the creative force at the heart of many of the most prominent projects in cities across the world. We are investing time, knowledge and research resources into the study of cities, where local action is delivering meaningful change at a global scale. With 12,000 designers, planners, engineers and consultants working from 92 offices and 40 countries, Arup has a global reach.

Voorlinden Museum Building images / information from Kraaijvanger Architects

Address: Buurtweg 90, 2244 AG Wassenaar, Netherlands – just East of Den Haag
Phone: +31 70 512 1660

Owner: Joop van Caldenborgh

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