Rijksmuseum to Transform Its Grounds With $11.5 Million Sculpture Garden

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has announced plans for a $11.5 million permanent sculpture garden, marking a significant expansion of the institution’s presentation of Modern and contemporary art beyond its famed Dutch Golden Age holdings. It’s the second major expansion the prestigious museum has announced in two months as it seeks to display more of its vast collection, only a fraction of which is on view.

The new garden will transform three areas of the museum grounds long used for temporary outdoor exhibitions into a permanent display of Modern and contemporary sculpture. Made possible by a landmark €60 million ($70 million) donation from the Don Quixote Foundation, the project will combine long-term sculpture loans with works from the Rijksmuseum’s own collection.

Home to Rembrandt’s The Night Watch and many works by Vermeer, the Rijksmuseum attracted around 2.5 million visitors in 2024, making it one of Europe’s most visited art institutions. The new publicly accessible outdoor space will house works by celebrated artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, and Henry Moore. Other works by contemporary artists will include a piece by the American post-minimalist Roni Horn, currently the subject of a major show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver.

Artist Impression of the planned Rijksmuseum sculpture garden. Image: Foster + Partners.

Taco Dibbits, general director of the Rijksmuseum, said in a statement that the garden will give Modern sculpture the “visibility it deserves,” adding that it also marks an “unprecedented enhancement of the Rijksmuseum’s collection of 20th-century art.”

Three existing pavilions on the grounds, built in the early 20th-century Amsterdam School style, will also be turned into exhibition venues by the British architectural firm Foster + Partners, which has designed countless museum spaces, ranging from the British Museum’s Great Court to the recently opened Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi.

The gardens, meanwhile, are being designed by the Belgian landscape architect Piet Blanckaert, who is best known for his Flanders Fields Memorial Garden located near Buckingham Palace in London. His mandate is to improve the biodiversity of the city park, making more space for 22 more mature trees and and a rich range of flowers and other plants.

Though the garden is slated to open later this year, planning permission has not yet been granted by the local council.

Exterior of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Photo: John Lewis Marshall.

The Don Quixote Foundation, the Rijksmuseum’s largest benefactor, was set up by local billionaire Rolly van Rappard. Of its sizable donation, €10 million ($11.5 million) will be spent on the new sculpture garden, while the remaining funds will be invested and spent on other museum activities. The foundation is also offering a significant number of sculptures on long-term loan.

The sculpture garden isn’t the museum’s only expansion underway. In December, the Rijksmuseum unveiled plans to establish a new satellite museum in the southern city of Eindhoven. The proposed 3,500-square-meter center will be built over the next six to eight years in parkland near the River Dommel, with backing from the Eindhoven city council and ASML, the semiconductor equipment manufacturer headquartered nearby.