The Opening of Rijkmuseum Amsterdam - April 2013

The Rijkmuseum is an Amsterdam landmark, and possesses a unrivalled collection of Dutch art! The museum displays among others the famous painting of Rembrandt “The Night Watch” also called  “the ‘Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch”!

Rijkmuseum was built in 1876 and features Dutch art works and paintings of Rembrandt , Vermeer, and Frans Hals as well as the works of  distinguished artists from all over Europe and beyond. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, was re-opened to the public on 14 April 2013 after a decade-long refurbishment and modernisation project, and it will present about 8,000 works of art from the national collection, that have now being installed telling the story of the Netherlands from the Middle Ages to the present day, a most interesting voyage though Dutch history and achievements.

The Museum originally founded in 1800, was closed for an extensive and wide ranging, €375 million Euro refurbishment, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, the national museum of arts has now emerged transformed and splendid, ready to welcome the world to see its magnificent new features, including modern technical innovations, and the spacious atrium has returned, where visitors can plan their route around 80 rooms and the 8,000 artworks that cover eight centuries of creativity.

During the lengthy closure of the main building, a selection of 400 works from the Rijksmuseum’s holdings, including Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, 1642, has been on show in its Philips Wing in an exhibition called “Masterpieces of the Dutch Golden Age”. Rijksmuseum’s main building, which was designed by Pierre Cuypers and opened in 1885 and its present day modernisation designed by the project team, which included the Spanish architects Antonio Ortiz and Antonio Cruz, was originally due to be completed in 2008 but due to planning problems and contractor wrangling, many delays occurred, but on April 14 it was formally opened by Beatrix the Queen of the Netherlands with considerable fanfare and pre- opening publicity, as the video above shows.

The annual attendance of the museum is expected to rise from around one million visitors before its renovation, to about five million subsequently. Almost one million people a year visited the Philips Wing, which is due to close in April and will reopen a year later, as a space for large-scale temporary exhibitions.

The Rijksmuseum is not the only major Amsterdam museum that has experienced a lengthy modernisation project. The nearby Stedelijk, Amsterdam’s leading museum of modern and contemporary art, is finally due to open its extension on 23 September2013.

If you are visiting the beautiful City of Amsterdam criss-crossed by its famous canals and bridges with boats serenely passing by,  one can gaze at the period architecture and breath in the 900 year history of this impressive art-filled City, that still manages to maintain the charm of a village. Now you can add to your pleasure by visiting The Rijksmuseum to view and absorb, arguably, some of the greatest art works ever created.