Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen

Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the world's first accessible art depot, will open its doors in September 2021 at Museumpark in the centre of Rotterdam. It will feature exhibition halls and a rooftop garden and restaurant, in addition to an enormous amount of storage space for art and design.

The form is of the 39.5-metre-high Depot is ovoid, a building 'in the round'. Its bowl-like form means that the ground-level footprint is small – maintaining views into and routes through the Museumpark – while the roof is as expansive as possible. One of its attractive features is the reflective facade, which is comprised of 6,609 square metres of glass, and subdivided into 1,664 mirrored panels.

In the Depot, artefacts will be exhibited on the basis of climatic requirements, rather than artistic movement or era. Each storage space is provided with a specific climate that is maintained by a climate control system. There are five different climate zones, suited to works of art produced with different materials: metal, plastic, organic/inorganic, and photography.

Visitors can immerse themselves in the world behind the scenes of a museum and experience what maintaining and caring for an invaluable art collection actually entails. Art and the route through the building are intertwined, from the lobby on the ground floor to the rooftop restaurant. Another public attraction will be the rooftop forest at a height of 35 meters, populated by 75 multi-stemmed birch trees standing several metres tall. The rooftop offers visitors breathtaking vistas across the city of Rotterdam.