History of the Centraal Museum

As an avid amateur historian, Mayor H.M.A.J. van Asch van Wijck ensures that the new city hall includes a museum—a place for the many historical artefacts collected by the municipality that relate to the city of Utrecht. Exhibiting them also provides a good opportunity to examine and catalogue everything properly.

On 5 September 1838, the Municipal Museum of Antiquities officially opens in the town hall. Residents aged fourteen and over can visit on Wednesday afternoons for a quarter of a guilder.

There is all manner of things to see, such as ‘Old Prints and Other Antiquities, Drawings and Paintings’, all of which ‘relate to the City of Utrecht’. Remarkably, men are required to purchase the accompanying catalogue, while women are not.

After the death of Mayor Van Asch van Wijck in 1843, hardly anything else is collected until city archivist S. Muller picks up the thread again in 1874. Four years later, he publishes a new catalogue for the ‘Museum of Antiquities’, as the museum has since come to be known. By then, the collection already comprises more than two thousand objects.

In 1887, Utrecht city council member A.C.J. van Eelde proposes purchasing the Hoogeland country estate near Biltstraat. The council approves the proposal by 15 votes to 9.

Not everyone is happy with this decision. Around a thousand people sign a petition to stop the sale. Threatening letters are even written, telling Van Eelde that there are ‘loaded guns waiting for him’.

It is not until November 1891 that it is announced that the country house will become a museum; the antiquities are moved to Hoogeland. Annual visitor numbers at the museum rise from 2,000 to 20,000.

Thirty years later, the city's collection is merged with several private collections and housed in a single 'central' museum in the former convent on Agnietenstraat. This marks the birth of the ‘Centraal Museum’ at this location: a place where Utrecht's history and art come together.

Paintings can be found on the upper floor, while the attic houses the collection we now refer to as urban history, and period rooms have been created downstairs in the new wing. Sculptures are also on display in the dining room, and Roman and Germanic objects in the former kitchen.

Since its opening in 1921, the Centraal Museum has also displayed the collections of the Kunstliefde society, the Archiepiscopal Museum and the Utrecht Museum of Decorative Arts.

Over the years, the museum acquires various Utrecht icons. One such icon is the 'Utrecht ship', discovered in 1930 on Van Hoornekade in Utrecht. It measures 17.8 by 3.8 metres, and its hull is made from a hollowed-out oak tree. Tree-ring analysis has shown that the ship was built between 997 and 1027. To install the ship, a wall beneath the foyer has to be temporarily removed.

In 1970, Truus Schröder establishes the Rietveld Schröder House Foundation to safeguard the future of the house. After her death in 1985, the house is thoroughly restored, and the foundation entrusts its management to the Centraal Museum. The Utrecht museum thus becomes responsible for opening the museum house to the public and preserving the house and its archive. The Rietveld Schröder House has been open to the public since 1987.

On 18 February 2006, the doors of the dick bruna huis will open, directly opposite the Centraal Museum. It is an annex of the museum. The focus is on Dick Bruna’s work: his children’s books and graphic designs.

In 2013, the museum became an independent organisation. The building and collection remained the property of the municipality. Two years later, the dick bruna huis and Centraal Museum underwent extensive renovations. The entrance to the Centraal Museum was moved to Agnietenstraat. The dick bruna huis reopened as the nijntje museum.

Following the opening in 2016, visitor numbers doubled. The museum is looking to the future with improvements including a better visitor route and reception desk, as well as a shop and information centre on the site of the former chapel in the monastery.

In the old monastery building, visitors could wander to their hearts’ content and enjoy many highlights, such as the 17th-century doll’s house and the ship. Exhibitions are regularly held in the Stables. The Refectory (now the Foyer) literally forms a bridge between the two buildings.

From 2022 through 2027, the Centraal Museum will be a guest at the Oud Amelisweerd country estate. For six years, from spring through autumn, this magnificent historic estate will provide the setting for a solo exhibition by a renowned contemporary Dutch artist. The programme is a partner project of the Hartwig Art Foundation.

This programme strand centres on artistic practice. Artists are given the opportunity to present existing or new work in relation to the historic setting of this magnificent country estate. The interplay between contemporary art, heritage and landscape is a key point of departure.

The original Miffy Museum, which opened in 2016, proved hugely popular and soon became too small for the more than 175,000 visitors it welcomed each year. It was therefore decided to expand the historic building on Agnietenstraat in Utrecht with a modern extension.

In June 2023, the new Miffy Museum will open its doors. Following the renovation, the museum has almost doubled in size and now features a Miffy Museum café, a 360-degree projection room and new themed spaces.