ARCHELLO YOUR CONNECTION WITH ARCHITECTURE

The 'open-depot' bridges connect two historic villas, creating continuous exhibition space; a new kind of museum experience. The Volkskrant, one of the major national daily newspapers, calls the glass museum the best new building of 2010.

The Dutch National Glass Museum collects, examines and exhibits glass art and design from 1850 onwards. It serves as the Netherlands’ treasury, laboratory and centre of knowledge on glass. The Glass Museum was started in 1953 in the house of Petrus Marinus Cochius, director of Leerdam glass manufacturers and founder of the Leerdam glass tradition.

Having two villas is charming, but provides the visitor with nothing else than to walk from one small room to another. By linking the two buildings, continuous exhibition rooms are created. The connection is more than a corridor; it is display space itself and becomes part of the visitor’s experience. Furthermore, the connecting bridges serve as the museum’s storage space. This open storage is fully accessible, making the National Glass Museum the Netherland’s first museum to give public access to its complete collection.