Rotterdam City Museum
Type: Exhitions and manifestations Location: Rotterdam Client: Department of Culture Municipality Rotterdam, Historical Museum Rotterdam Team: Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, Bart Reuser with Toon van Schijndel, Jurriaan Hillerström, Abdel Tutu, Maria Teresa Durao, Menwua Deng Collaborator / associate: Kossmann.DeJong Exhibition Architects Floor area / size: 10.000 m2 Cost: 45.000.000 Status: study 2008
Together with exhibition architects Kossmann & De Jong, NEXT architects has been asked to develop a strategy for Rotterdam’s new City Museum. This museum, which would encompass the existing Historical Museum of Rotterdam, will be a place to depict and discuss the contemporary city, its history, and dream of its future: a place to celebrate the urban identity of this international harbour city.
The concept of the building is derived from the idea of a giant collection of showcases, apparently stacked and combined to create a three-dimensional open structure. The smaller showcases house the permanent collection of the museum and thereby function as a public depot; the bigger showcases generate space for temporary exhibitions. City life continues within the framework of the stacked boxes; the interstitial spaces function as new public domains and represent the dynamic of the Rotterdam street-life. It is a building without thresholds.