Rijksmuseum Twenthe

Jan Bernard van Heek and his family made their money in the Twente textile industry, which dominated Enschede for a century, and Jan Herman van Heek - the same collector who filled Huis Bergh - was among those who built a picture collection and then gave it to the state with a purpose-built museum, opened in 1930 in a brick building by Muller and Beudt around a courtyard. It is one of the few Dutch national museums outside the Randstad. The collection runs wide: medieval and early Netherlandish panels, seventeenth-century Dutch painting including Bruegel the Younger and Van Ruisdael, a group of Monet and Cezanne, De Stijl and Bauhaus material, and a contemporary programme with commissioned installations that sit deliberately awkwardly among the old masters. Enschede itself was largely rebuilt after the textile collapse and a 2000 fireworks depot explosion that destroyed a district.

What you actually see

• A national museum outside the Randstad - built in 1930 from a textile fortune.
• Medieval panels to Cezanne - a wide collection across five centuries.
• Commissioned contemporary work - installations set among the old masters.
• A courtyard building of 1930 - purpose-built for the collection.

When to go

All year. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Closed Mondays. The collection rotates and the contemporary interventions are not to everyone's taste. Enschede is a long way from the Randstad and largely postwar. Temporary shows take space.

Nearby

Lutterzand and the Dinkel are north; the German border is east.