Experience the 1950s
Museum houses abound along the canals of the Grachtengordel, but also exist outside the city’s centre. At the Freek Oxstraat 27 in Slotermeer in New West one can experience how people lived in a modern family house in the 1950s. Heating with a coal stove, calling with ‘a big bakelite apparatus’ and cooking in a Bruynzeel-kitchen. The model house has been fully decorated in accordance with the principles of the ‘Stichting Goed Wonen’. After the Second World-War, idealistic architects, designers, manufacturers, shopkeepers and consumers strived for a type of home furnishing in which each family member could optimally develop.

Establishment
The Van Eesteren Museum House in Slotermeer was opened in October 2012, when the district existed for exactly 60 years. The establishment of the Museum House represents an example of the new trend towards cooperation, recycling and sharing. Together with housing corporation ‘de Alliantie’ the residence has been refurbished to its original state. Its furnishings and interiors were donated by local residents and other interested people. They were all pleased to see that their precious belongings got a new destination in the Museum House. Volunteers helped to restore the goods, and to clean and decorate the house. The result is a museum house of and for us all.

The fifties are ‘hot’
Design and fashion of the fifties are currently ‘hot’. Also the cosiness of the times are celebrated and sought after. Playing a board game with the entire family in the living, or listening together to the radio. Of course, this romanticized image ignores some practical drawbacks: the coal stove only heated the living, which restricted family life to this room in wintertime. How life was lived in the Fifties can be experienced in the Van Eesteren Museum House.

Visit the Van Eesteren Museum House
The Van Eesteren Museum House can be visited all year round:
1. With a guide: Thursdays to Sundays at 14:30.
2. Independently with an audio tour: every Friday and Saturday at 12:30.

Both visits are in Dutch. In consultation with the guide (visit of 14:30), translations into English are often possible (but not guaranteed).

More information and tickets can be found here.

Iconic Houses
The Van Eesteren Museum House is part of the Iconic Houses Network. The website of Iconic Houses provides an overview of architecturally significant houses over the world that are open to the public.