Boijmans

The Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen is the world's first publicly accessible art storage building, where visitors can walk through actual conservation and storage spaces housing the museum's full collection. It opened in 2021 at Museumpark in Rotterdam as a way to keep the collection visible while the main museum building undergoes long-term renovation.

The Depot was designed by Rotterdam-based architecture firm MVRDV, celebrated internationally for inventive and unconventional projects. Its bowl shape wrapped in fully mirrored panels makes it one of the most photographed contemporary structures in the Netherlands.

Pixel Pioneers is a current exhibition on view at the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen dedicated to the history and culture of pixel art and early digital creativity. It reflects Boijmans' broader mission to bring digital and popular culture into conversation with the museum's historical collection.

The historic main museum building in Rotterdam is closed for a large-scale, long-term renovation. Visitors can still experience the collection and catch exhibitions like Pixel Pioneers at the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, which operates as the active public face of the institution during this period.

Yes — unlike a conventional museum storeroom, the Depot is purpose-built for public access, letting visitors see how artworks are stored, preserved, and organized behind the scenes. Guided tours take you through climate-controlled vaults where paintings, sculptures, and design objects from the collection are kept.

The Boijmans Van Beuningen collection is among the most important in the Netherlands and includes works by Hieronymus Bosch, Rembrandt, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, alongside modern masterpieces by Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. The collection covers painting, drawing, sculpture, design, and applied arts spanning several centuries.

Yes, the Depot features a rooftop garden and terrace offering sweeping views over Museumpark and the Rotterdam skyline. The rooftop has become an attraction in its own right, drawing visitors interested in both the architecture and the city panorama, not just the art stored inside.

The Depot is a distinctive bowl-shaped building clad entirely in mirrored panels, making it appear to reflect the surrounding park, trees, and city skyline. Its futuristic appearance has turned it into a landmark within Rotterdam's already architecture-rich urban landscape.

The Depot sits at Museumpark in central Rotterdam, a cultural campus that also includes the Kunsthal and the Natural History Museum. It is easily reachable from Rotterdam Centraal station and lies within walking distance of the city centre.

Boijmans Van Beuningen is celebrated as one of the Netherlands' great encyclopedic museums, known for a collection stretching from medieval Flemish masters to twentieth-century surrealism and contemporary design. Since 2021 it has drawn fresh international attention as the home of the world's first publicly accessible art depot, a genuinely unprecedented concept in the museum world.