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Meridiela.
Lees in het NederlandsThis page is also written in Nederlands.

Museum de Fundatie

A neoclassical palace of justice with a tiled ellipsoid landed on its roof, holding art from Bruegel to Warhol.

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Typemuseum
WhereOverijssel
Nearest cityZwolle
Best seasonAll year
Time to allowHalf a day
Getting thereBlijmarkt, central Zwolle; a walk from Zwolle station
EntryTicketed

The museum occupies the former Paleis van Justitie in Zwolle, a neoclassical building of 1841, and in 2013 Bierman Henket added the thing everyone photographs: an ellipsoid volume of about a thousand square metres set on the roof, clad in some fifty-five thousand three-dimensional white tiles that catch the light differently through the day, doubling the exhibition space and giving the building a top-lit gallery with views over the city through slots at either end. Zwolle calls it the wolk, the cloud, or less kindly the egg, and opinion in the town has never entirely settled. The collection comes from the Hannema-de Stuers foundation and covers a wide range - old masters including Bruegel and Van Goyen, French nineteenth-century work, Mondrian, Van Gogh drawings, Warhol and contemporary Dutch art - with a second site at Heino in a country house.

What you actually see

  • An ellipsoid on a roof - fifty-five thousand white tiles over an 1841 courthouse.
  • A top-lit upper gallery - the new volume with views through slots at each end.
  • A wide-ranging collection - Bruegel and Van Goyen through to Warhol.
  • A divided town - the cloud admired and disliked in roughly equal measure.

When to go

All year. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Closed Mondays. The permanent collection rotates and much of the space goes to temporary exhibitions. The second site at Heino is a separate trip and ticket.

Nearby

Zwolle's moat circuit and the Sassenpoort are a short walk.

What to pack for Museum de Fundatie

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Opening times, ticket prices and seasonal closures change - check the official source before you go: official site.

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