Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum | MVRDV

Located in Rotterdam’s Museumpark, the depot features a new type of experience for museum visitors: a sturdy engine room where the complete collection of 151,000 objects is made accessible to the public. In addition to the various storage and care areas, the depot has a restaurant and an award-winning rooftop forest at a height of 35 metres.

A 39.5-metre-high building ‘in the round’, the depot’s bowl-like form has a relatively small footprint. This form ensures that at the ground level, existing views into and routes through the Museumpark remain unimpeded and reduces the impact on underground water buffers, while an expansive rooftop public space with a restaurant provides access to inspiring views of Rotterdam. Comprising 6,609 square metres of glass subdivided into 1,664 mirrored panels, its reflective façade wears the trappings of whatever surrounds it: people passing by, Museumpark’s leafy grounds, the clouds, and Rotterdam’s dynamic city skyline. Thanks to this reflection, the building is already fully integrated into its surroundings, despite its not insignificant size of 15,000 m2. It enlivens its surroundings while establishing strong relationships with the park and the neighbouring buildings.

In the depot, artefacts will be stored and exhibited according to their climatic requirements, as opposed to movement or era. Each storage space is climate controlled and organized into five different climate zones, arranged according to works of art produced with different materials: metal, plastic, organic/inorganic, and photography.

The building’s eyecatcher is the atrium with crisscrossing staircases and suspended glass display cases showing exhibitions of works selected by museum curators. This atrium will lead visitors to exhibition rooms and curators’ studios, offering them a unique behind-the-scenes experience and the chance to learn how a world-renowned museum maintains and cares for its art collection. Art is displayed throughout the building, beginning in the ground floor lobby and continuing along the entire route through the building, extending even to the rooftop restaurant. Outside this restaurant, a rooftop forest at a height of 35 metres will provide another public attraction, accessible via an express elevator from the ground floor, and populated by 75 multi-stemmed birch trees standing several metres tall. The rooftop offers visitors breath-taking vistas across the city of Rotterdam.

From the Facade Consultants (ABT)

In the design of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Collection Building, the shape of the building and its reflective façade are what define the building’s overall appearance and are the calling card for the museum. The perception of the reflection’s perfection is affected by the accuracy of the shape. By describing it in mathematical rules – by means of rationalisation – the shape could be determined exactly prior to production. By recognising the curve as a variable, changes in the shape could easily be implemented in the later stages of the design, without affecting the current process. The exact shape of the glass panels was recorded in BIM models (Revit). By linking these models to parametric shape models, it was easy to generate new documentation and thereby respond flexibly to changes in shape.

ABT BEE proved that the reflective façade was technically and financially feasible. The facade consultants produced the technical design for the glass façade and provided MVRDV with architectural support in developing the building.

By making use of optimisation models, a model was produced that could be used to find the optimal technical shape of the façade. The façade consists of 64 segments and 26 rows, which means that the project incorporates 26 unique spherical curved glass panels. A technical masterpiece! Different glass samples have been produced to create a panel with the correct colour of glass and reflection.

Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum | MVRDV

Project Credits

Architects: MVRDV
Year: 2020
Photographs: Ossip van Duivenbode, Rob Galastra
Principal In Charge: Winy Maas
Partner: Fokke Moerel
Project Team: Sanne van der Burgh, Arjen Ketting, Gerard Heerink, Jason Slabbynck, Rico van de Gevel, Marjolein Marijnissen, Remco de Haan
Competition Team: Sanne van der Burgh, Marta Pozo, Gerard Heerink, Elien Deceuninck, Saimon Gomez Idiakez, Jose Ignacio Velasco Martin, Jason Slabbynck, Mariya Gyaurova, Lukasz Brzozowski Strategy & Development: Jan Knikker, Irene Start
Visualization: Antonio Luca Coco, Matteo Artico, Carlo Cattó
Contractor: BAM
Structure: IMd Raadgevend Ingenieurs
Cost Engineering: BBN
Installations: RHDHV
Façade Consultants: ABT
Building Physics: Peutz
Sustainability: BREEAM Excellent (goal)
City: Rotterdam
Country: The Netherlands

Article text courtesy of architects