114 ANTWERP & ROTTERDAM


Left Madonna Surrounded by Seraphim and Cherubim by Jean Fouquet


never predictable, always in balance, challenging and at the service of the art. Te Rubens Gallery, including some monumental church paintings, Te Adoration of the Magi, Te Baptism of Christ and Madonna Enthroned Surrounded by Saints, is largely unchanged. But the “old museum” has been polished and reorganised to emphasise its relevance to contemporary visitors. Where previously the display followed chronology, now it groups works according to themes, such as “Prayer”, “Suffering” and “Redemption”. In the “new museum” work is also organised by themes, such as “Light” and “Form”, and displayed against bright white walls, where daylight pours down through glass atriums. Within these spaces, a few paintings are often clustered together to clarify particular artistic concepts. Although the works are largely divided into “old” and “new”, the curators have


occasionally had some fun by mixing the two in order to defy expectations. A Fra Angelico pops up in a cluster of abstract modern paintings. A Tuymans portrait features in the old masters’ “Suffering” section, near a Pietà. Two distinct worlds, but ones that communicate nevertheless and sometimes come into dialogue in a single universe in Antwerp. Also based in Rotterdam, MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. Maas together with Fokke Moerel and his team have created something remarkable, and utterly democratic. Less than ten minutes by bike from their office is the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, a place where open access takes on a whole new meaning by breaking with the standard museum tradition of concealment – most only exhibiting 6–7% of their collections. Tus, on average, 94% is hidden away and the


public never sees it. Located at Museumpark in the centre of Rotterdam, the depot is the world’s first fully accessible museum storage facility. Te whole lot. Not only that, visitors can immerse themselves in the world behind the scenes and experience what maintaining and caring for an invaluable collection actually entails; they can see conservation and restoration processes, packaging and transportation of works of art. Everything that happens. Backstage has become front of stage. Some 151,000 artefacts are stored on the basis of climatic requirements, rather than by artistic movement or era in one of five different climate zones suited to works produced in different materials. A combination of geothermal heat exchange, solar panels, LED lighting and high- performance insulation makes the building neutral with regard to energy consumption.


HUGO MAERTENS


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