The Fries Museum reopened in September in Leeuwarden, the capital city of the Dutch province of Friesland.
It was created thanks to an unexpected bequest of €18m from the architect Abe Bonnema, who was born in the region in 1926 and died in 2001.
Bonnema specified that the money had to spent on building a new museum, which had to be in a central square in the city centre and the architect had to be Hubert-Jan Henket. The original museum opened in 1881 and was located on the Turfmarkt in Leeuwarden.
The museum has a 170,000-strong collection, making it the largest provincial museum in the Netherlands. Items range from archaeological finds to modern art.
The Fries Museum showcases the history of the region and includes displays on figures such as Mata Hari, who was born in Leeuwarden in 1876, and the 16th-century freedom fighter Grutte Pier.
The new museum includes an exhibition about the Golden Age in 17th-century Friesland told through five key figures; Horizons: Art in a Changing Friesland; and the Story of Friesland, which looks at how writers, painters and photographers have portrayed the area and its people.
Future plans include a blockbuster show about the Frisian/English painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, whose works inspired Hollywood film-makers and set designers.
How does the museum showcase Friesland and its history?
Saskia Bak: The history of Friesland is a history with lots of connections so we have a lot of objects that are not particularly from Friesland, they are from Amsterdam or the Hague. This was a rich province so people also bought objects and art from France, for example. We tell the story of Friesland but in connection with the rest of the world.
How does the Frisian Resistance Museum, where people relate their wartime experiences in the province from 1940 to 1945, fit into the new museum?
The story about the war is an emotional story in the new museum. People in Friesland are always telling stories about the war and what happened. It is important here.
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
What was difficult was that we were making a new building in a new century, a new millennium, so we had to ask ourselves how does a museum work in today’s society. Before, museums in the Netherlands were a little bit by themselves – they were about themselves and they dealt with each other.
But museums now have more and more of a role in society and we were talking in the museum about how we can do this. We are a very open museum that is in the middle of society. We’re not the only one telling the story, we want to know what the public like and are interested in and we have a dialogue with our visitors.
Where do your audiences come from?
We like to have a programme that is interesting for people in Friesland – they have to recognise themselves in the stories that we tell. But it also has to be attractive to other people in the Netherlands to come here. People in the Netherlands like Friesland.
What is the most innovative element of the new museum?
I think the way we are presenting is new. We are mixing up all types of objects so you don’t have a room with all paintings, then another, then another. In the Story of Friesland, there is contemporary art alongside objects from today.
People like it, as those who are not specialists in modern and contemporary art, they don’t like the white cube idea, it is not for them.
It was created thanks to an unexpected bequest of €18m from the architect Abe Bonnema, who was born in the region in 1926 and died in 2001.
Bonnema specified that the money had to spent on building a new museum, which had to be in a central square in the city centre and the architect had to be Hubert-Jan Henket. The original museum opened in 1881 and was located on the Turfmarkt in Leeuwarden.
The museum has a 170,000-strong collection, making it the largest provincial museum in the Netherlands. Items range from archaeological finds to modern art.
The Fries Museum showcases the history of the region and includes displays on figures such as Mata Hari, who was born in Leeuwarden in 1876, and the 16th-century freedom fighter Grutte Pier.
The new museum includes an exhibition about the Golden Age in 17th-century Friesland told through five key figures; Horizons: Art in a Changing Friesland; and the Story of Friesland, which looks at how writers, painters and photographers have portrayed the area and its people.
Future plans include a blockbuster show about the Frisian/English painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, whose works inspired Hollywood film-makers and set designers.
How does the museum showcase Friesland and its history?
Saskia Bak: The history of Friesland is a history with lots of connections so we have a lot of objects that are not particularly from Friesland, they are from Amsterdam or the Hague. This was a rich province so people also bought objects and art from France, for example. We tell the story of Friesland but in connection with the rest of the world.
How does the Frisian Resistance Museum, where people relate their wartime experiences in the province from 1940 to 1945, fit into the new museum?
The story about the war is an emotional story in the new museum. People in Friesland are always telling stories about the war and what happened. It is important here.
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
What was difficult was that we were making a new building in a new century, a new millennium, so we had to ask ourselves how does a museum work in today’s society. Before, museums in the Netherlands were a little bit by themselves – they were about themselves and they dealt with each other.
But museums now have more and more of a role in society and we were talking in the museum about how we can do this. We are a very open museum that is in the middle of society. We’re not the only one telling the story, we want to know what the public like and are interested in and we have a dialogue with our visitors.
Where do your audiences come from?
We like to have a programme that is interesting for people in Friesland – they have to recognise themselves in the stories that we tell. But it also has to be attractive to other people in the Netherlands to come here. People in the Netherlands like Friesland.
What is the most innovative element of the new museum?
I think the way we are presenting is new. We are mixing up all types of objects so you don’t have a room with all paintings, then another, then another. In the Story of Friesland, there is contemporary art alongside objects from today.
People like it, as those who are not specialists in modern and contemporary art, they don’t like the white cube idea, it is not for them.
Project data
- Cost €36m
- Main funder Abe Bonnema €18m; Fryslan Province
- Architects Bierman Henket Architects, Bonnema Architects
- Rabobank Studio design Nynke-Rixt Jukema
- Exhibition design Opera
