Dutch National Museum to Reopen Saturday After 10-Year Hiatus

After a 10-year renovation hiatus, The Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of Netherlands, will reopen Saturday, April 13.

The museum experienced a bit of infamy when it closed in 2003, as plans for souping up what has been described by Dutch critics as a dim and sad building were dashed by dramatic scandals.

Poor planning led to botched legal documents, a contractor gone bankrupt, the discovery of asbestos in the building, and eventually, a director's resignation from the museum board. Not to mention a campaign put on by Amsterdam's cycling lobby to protect bicycle rights in a passage that ran through the building.

The factors created quite the recipe for disaster, ultimately lengthening the project time by years and costing a whopping 318 pounds ($486 million).

But now, the museum is ready to go, and during a preview of what Rijksmuseum has to offer Thursday, museum director Wim Pijbes told the Associated Press that the long wait was well worth it.

"It's totally changed," he said. "Renewed, improved, radiant-everything is new."

However, the building's brick outside was left untouched by construction to preserve the 19th century castle-like aesthetic.

The interior, however, couldn't be different, and the revamping is clear in the details: floors made of mosaic, stained glass windows, even hand-painted pieces on pillars.

"The intention is...to create a feeling for beauty of Dutch art and a feeling for the time," Pijbes said.

The bike path that was under such hot contest turned out to be one of the defining features of the updated museum.

Telegraph writer Richard Dorment traveled to the Rijksmuseum during its preview, and said that a fair amount of the 318 pounds went towards,"[placating] the bicycling lobby," as they "[dug] below sea level to create a vast underground atrim...to unify the two sides of the building at that level."

The Rijksmuseum is home to the largest showing of Dutch artwork, spanning four centuries of paintings and sculpture. It offers works by artists including Vermeer, Frans Hals, and Rembrandt.