Voorlinden Museum of contemporary art opens its doors

The Voorlinden Museum of contemporary art in Wassenaar, the Netherlands, has recently been opened by the Dutch King, Willem-Alexander. The new museum provides 4.000 m2 of space for a range of activities, from exhibition spaces to a library. The inner environment of the new building is lit by both natural and artificial lighting under design of Arup.

The Voorlinden Museum was conceived by Kraaijvanger Architects who worked in close collaboration with Joop van Caldenborgh. The contemporary art museum was opened to the public on the 10th of September by King Willem-Alexander. The museum provides 4.000 m2 of space, including for exhibitions, an auditorium, a library, educational space, a restoration workshop and a museum shop. In addition, the building is surrounded by extensively developed grounds.

As part of the development of the new centre, Arup was called in to deliver a range of technical consultancy and design engineering to the project. The firm was responsible for developing the inner climate in relation to both its visitors and its artworks, the lighting, as well as electrical engineering, fire safety, building physics and acoustics.

The inner climate leverages a range of natural light features designed to provide both sun-lit as well as artificial lighting to the museum – including 115,000 angled cut tubes located over the roof of the building which channels light indirectly into the building as well as LED lighting for night or poor quality day lighting.

Joop Paul, Project Director at Arup in the Netherlands, remarks, “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 colour of the daylight. It made the Arup team very happy and proud that we could contribute to this.”

To the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, Paul said, “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.” He ends by saying, “When you have the opportunity to do something well, you should.”