Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Rijksmuseum is the monumental museum building before you, created for Dutch art and history. Its architect was Pierre Cuypers, and the building opened in 1885. Look at the richly worked surfaces and the long passage through the structure: this is a place where the building itself carries Dutch artistic history.

Inside, the museum presents 8,000 works from a collection of one million objects spanning the years 1200–2000. Among them are major works by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer, with a separate Asian pavilion adding another strand to the collection. The museum began in The Hague in 1798, moved to Amsterdam in 1808, and occupied the Royal Palace before settling here.

The building reopened on 13 April 2013 after a renovation lasting almost ten years and costing €375 million. That long journey explains why this is more than a gallery assembled in a single moment: its holdings grew through purchases and gifts, while works from different institutions were brought together when the Cuypers building opened. The result is a national museum where Dutch art, history, architecture, and collecting all meet in one remarkable place.