Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Architect: Benthem Crouwel Architects.

The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam underwent a complete renovation to bring it up to modern museum standards and convert all program spaces into galleries for the permanent collection. A new building was constructed adjacent to the historic building to house galleries for temporary exhibitions, visitor services, public amenities, library, and offices. The main entrance was relocated to the Museumplein, creating a common ground for the Stedelijk Museum, Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, and Concertgebouw. The new building appears as a smooth white volume oblong in shape and canted upward at one end, supported on white columns. The envelope for the second-floor galleries, auditorium, and offices is entirely encased in glass at the transparent ground-floor level, which houses the main entrance and lobby, museum shop, and restaurant. The roof of the new building matches the height of the original building’s cornice line, creating a sheltered outdoor plaza at ground level. Visitors can choose to pass directly into the original building or take the stairs or elevator to the new building’s exhibition galleries. The smooth white surface of the facade is made up of 271 panels of a pioneering new composite material with Twaron fiber as its key ingredient. The new building matches the scale of the 1895 building and has a direct seamless connection to it on all floors. The two are fully integrated without either one being compromised. Petra Blaisse designed an architectural-scale textile for the interior of the new building, covering the back wall of the restaurant and extending into the entrance hall. The work has been specially fabricated by the Dutch carpet manufacturer Desso.

Photo credit: John Lewis Marshall.