Museum & surroundings
The Van Eesteren Museum tells a broad and current story about urban planning, from the history of the post-war Amsterdam Expansion Districts. The museum is about the life and ideas of urban planner Cornelis van Eesteren and his team.
Nieuw-West was part of the General Expansion Plan, also known as the AUP. An expansion plan from 1935 that was supposed to facilitate the population's housing needs until 2000. Van Eesteren was at the basis of the plan, in which “light, air and space” was the starting point.
The Van Eesteren Museum is located in the heart of Amsterdam Nieuw-West and consists of an outdoor museum, an indoor museum and a fifties museum home. The museum organises various exhibitions, walks, excursions, talks and other activities. Since 2017, the museum has been located in a newly built museum pavilion on the Sloterplas.
The building
The museum pavilion was designed by Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architects. Inspired by pavilion construction from the 50s and 60s, they came up with a simple wooden building with lots of glass. It is dark in color so that it fits well into the park-like environment of the Sloterplas. The inviting and transparent building, overlooking the Sloterplas, has a sober and efficient character, just like much of the architecture from the reconstruction period. This special location can also be rented for bookings.
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Cafe
After your museum visit, you can enjoy a cup of coffee in the Van Eesteren Café. In the summer months from April to September, the terrace is also open. Then you can sit in the sun with a view of the Sloterplas.
Opening hours
Thursday to Sunday
12 - 5 p.m.
Pin only.
Ins & outs
Did you know that the Van Eesteren Museum started out as an outdoor museum? Indeed, architecture and urban planning is about the space around us and the Nieuw-West district is a textbook example of the General Expansion Plan, co-created by Cornelis van Eesteren. Since 2008, the immediate vicinity of the museum has been a municipal protected cityscape. This is the section between Gerbrandy Park and Burgemeester Vening Meineszlaan. This area is part of the Tuinstad Slotermeer expansion plan, which was conceived as early as 1939 and implemented in the early 1950s. It was the first new neighborhood to be set up outside the ring and is a good representation of post-war urban planning ideas.
The museum is located on the Sloterplas and is located exactly where Cornelis van Eesteren already drew a pavilion on the map in 1939. In his mind, he saw Amsterdammers strolling from the pavilion on the East Bank to the pavilion on the North Side.
