Centraal Museum Utrecht

The Centraal Museum has plans to renovate and redesign the museum. Director Edwin Jacobs comments: “Visitors are frequently surprised by the diversity of the Centraal Museum collection. I want to bring this out more into the open, because it is exactly why the Centraal Museum is interesting to a wide public. With its ideal location the museum is also an important historic place with a great  look. At the moment we attract around 135,000 visitors a year, which is a nice amount, but this number can be increased significantly if the Centraal Museum plays a more prominent role as cultural platform in the city and province of Utrecht.
‘Centraal Museum steps into the open’ is an ambitious project to redesign the museum, in which space is given to the historic character of the buildings. The entrance will be relocated to the Agnietenstraat, providing for a clearer layout of the building and a more obvious link to the dick bruna huis. This project emphasizes the improvement of auxiliary facilities of the museum, such as a multi-functional venue space, the museum shop, the entrance, the café and an auditorium. We will have more space to exhibit art. It will also be easier and less costly to open up certain parts of the museum outside opening hours. More space and flexible opening times will offer more opportunities. In future the Centraal Museum guarantees a complete cultural experience.
A modern museum is, after all, more than just a few walls showing art. Centraal Museum therefore intends to provide a platform for its cultural partners in the city and province. I think it is important to cross-over between different disciplines, because this creates interesting exchanges and new insights, without of course compromising the authenticity of the museum experience. In collaboration with interior architects Bureau Soda, we have devised a fine plan to redesign the museum". This plan can be downloaded in PDF (in Dutch).