Revisiting the Rijksmuseum

On 13 April, the Rijksmuseum opens its doors to the public again, having closed them in 2003. The endless delays that have bedevilled the renovation of the 1885 neo-Netherlandish Renaissance building have meant that most of the museum's vast collection — over a million works, including paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer — has been off limits to visitors for a decade, as has the public passageway used by cyclists and pedestrians.

The arched passageway, linking the centre and the busy Stadhouderskade to the Oud Zuid area of the city and the Museumplein, was part of the brief to architect P. J. H. Cuypers, who was also responsible for the city's Centraal Station. Originally, the Rijksmuseum was intended not only to house the nation's art treasures, but also to function as a gateway to the then newly developed southern axis of the city — a dual purpose which caused problems both for Cuypers and for the renovation project.

Having won the competition in 2001 to redesign and expand the building, Spanish architects Cruz y Ortiz had planned to convert the passageway into the main entrance of the museum, with a monumental staircase leading to the basement. The passageway was an "everlastingly unsatisfactory solution," says Antonio Ortiz García of Cruz y Ortiz. "Running in a north-south direction, the passageway cuts the building into an east and a west wing, disabling any continuity in the exhibition routes."

The architects' solution would have eradicated the fracturing effect of the passageway. However, they had not counted on the district council of Amsterdam Zuid, nor the Dutch Cyclists' Union, which launched a campaign to save the passageway, ultimately meaning that Cruz y Ortiz had to alter the design — a compromise to the radical tradition of protest beloved by Amsterdammers. "It's a second-best solution," says Ortiz philosophically.

Now, the museum has four entrances in the glass side walls of the passageway, which is preserved as a thoroughfare. While it is a compromise, this solution is a huge improvement on the former state of affairs: visitors are greeted not by the cramped and dingy stairwell of the former entrance, but by two soaring atria, which are linked by a new tunneled space passing under the cycle passageway.

The light-filled atria, the twin courtyards of Cuypers' original design, have not been seen for the best part of a century. "The original structure had been lost due to the interventions that took place over the years," says Antonio Cruz Villalón. "Rather than preserving the original structure, it was a case of recovering it. Although it's difficult to believe, the courtyards had disappeared and housed three or four extra floors for exhibition space."

Opening up the courtyards to form the atria of the new museum "provides light and orientation and enables the museum to have an entrance hall of important dimensions," adds Ortiz. "The virtue of connecting both courtyards by means of a modest hall underneath the passage is one that we — thanks to present-day techniques — could execute; it was a limitation that Cuypers had to live with in his day. With this new connection, a logistical bottleneck is solved."

Creating the connection between the east and west atria was the biggest challenge of the project, structurally speaking: "In order to achieve it, the old foundations of the passage had to be made more slender. If you can imagine it, the whole gallery and passageway had to be raised while the existing foundations were cut off and new concrete columns placed," says Ortiz, who refers to the process as "a risky intervention."

Although still cut off from each other by the passageway, the atria add an experience of space that was sadly lacking in the Rijksmuseum prior to its renovation. Accentuating the effect are the twin cage-like "chandeliers" devised by the architects as an acoustic solution and to house lighting and security facilities. The old outspoken neo-Gothicism of Cuypers and the contemporary monumentalism of Cruz y Ortiz co-exist surprisingly easily. Both, actually, look as though they will be fading into the background as the new, commercial purpose of museums takes centre stage, with much of the new space swallowed by a large café and a gift shop selling various items, including enormous stuffed versions of Miffy, the white cartoon rabbit invented by Dick Bruna.

"Cuypers is very expressive in his way of facing a building. He considers his buildings a Gesamtkunstwerk," says Cruz. "This goes to an extreme extent throughout the building. In order to achieve a museum that serves the art, neither Cuypers nor our intervention should overrule the museum experience. Now the renovation is completed, we can consider the courtyards as our main intervention, having more evidence and being more present. Cuypers provides the historical background for it. In the galleries, our position was very withdrawn; even Cuypers had to be silent here. Meanwhile in the Front Hall, the Gallery of Honour and Night Watch room it is Cuypers and Sturm (the Austrian artist who painted the museum frescoes, now fully restored) who determine the experience of the space, coinciding with the art that is exposed. For us it is important that none of the architects shouts over the other ones, but that they find their synergetic coexistence."

Nevertheless, coexisting with Cuypers has not been easy. Says Ortiz: "It's possibly best to call it a love-hate relationship." Jane Szita