De Pont Museum

Jan de Pont, a Tilburg lawyer and industrialist, left money in 1987 for a foundation to promote contemporary art, and the museum opened in 1992 in the Thomas de Beer wool mill - a long spinning hall of the 1930s with a saw-tooth roof, converted by Benthem Crouwel with the industrial volume left intact. Along one side are the wolhokken, the small brick cells where wool was stored, which were kept and are used as separate rooms for single works, so the museum alternates between one very large open space and a row of intimate ones. The collection is strong on Anish Kapoor, Marlene Dumas, Bill Viola, Richard Long, Luc Tuymans and Ai Weiwei, with works acquired in depth rather than singly. Berlinde De Bruyckere and Roni Horn have permanent presences. The setting - daylight through the saw-tooth roof over a concrete floor - carries a lot of it.

History

The lawyer and businessman Jan de Pont (1915-1987) left part of his estate to a foundation to encourage contemporary art, leaving its board to decide the form; its founding director Hendrik Driessen chose to turn a Tilburg wool-spinning mill into a museum, which opened in 1992 and now holds more than 800 works by some eighty artists (Wikipedia, De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art).

The main sights

• A 1930s spinning hall - the volume kept intact under a saw-tooth roof.
• Wool-storage cells as rooms - the wolhokken used for single works along one side.
• Depth over breadth - Kapoor, Dumas, Viola and Tuymans acquired in quantity.
• Daylight from above - the roof lighting the whole space.

When to go

All year. Half a day.

What to expect

Closed Mondays. The collection rotates and specific works may not be up. It is contemporary art and the presentation assumes some engagement. Tilburg needs a bus from the station.

Nearby

The TextielMuseum is in another Tilburg mill; Breda is west.

Key facts