Location: Texel, Netherlands.

Architect: Mecanoo.

The new entrance building of the Kaap Skil museum in Texel, Netherlands, takes visitors back in time to the Dutch Golden Age. The museum showcases an 18-meter long, 4-meter deep model of the Reede van Texel, displaying in great detail the impressive spectacle of the dozens of ships anchored off the coast of the Wadden Island. The museum is designed with four playfully linked gabled roofs, which are a play on the rhythm of the surrounding roof tops. The wooden façade of Kaap Skil is made of sawn hardwood sheet-piling from the North Holland Canal, and the vertical wooden boards have been given a new life just like the objects in the museum collection. The entrance and the museum café form a natural frontier between the world of the Reede van Texel in the basement and that of the underwater archaeology on the first floor. The contrast between the two worlds is reinforced by the different experiences of light and space. In the basement, visitors are drawn around the exhibition by projections and animations, creating an intimate space that harbours a sense of mystery. On the first floor, the North Holland sky floods the objects on display with light. The movable showcases of robust steel frames and glass create a transparent effect so that the objects in the collection seem to float within the space. Under the high gabled roofs, the visitor gets a generous sense of being able to survey the sizable collection, the museum grounds, and the village of Oudeschild at a glance.

Photo credit: Thijs Wolzak.