Museum matters

With designers like Maarten Baas and Jaime Hayón on the job, the newly improved Groninger Museum could only be impressive.

First Published in

Eight months and six million euros later, the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands has reopened to the public after extensive refurbishment.

Dutch design firm Studio Job renovated the entrance and select interior additions while Maarten Baas refurnished and spiced up the Mendini restaurant and Jaime Hayón created the new digital visitors’ information centre. Meanwhile Italian designer Alessandro Mendini designed a tile wall for the exterior surface of the Mendini pavilion.

Studio Job incorporated 19th century influences, specifically that of gentlemen’s clubs and private smoking rooms, into their part of the design with the reception hall now being called the "job lounge". Baas brought a new series of “clay” furniture works, created exclusively for the Groninger renovation, into the restaurant. The pieces work to hide the metal frame beneath the industrial clay. Hayón brings a “Copa Cabana” light series and finishes to the digital visitors’ information centre, as part of the musuem’s initiative to increase the amount of information available.

Other renovation and additions to the museum include repainting, interior additions, exterior restorations and refinishing the museum’s famous Golden Tower.

Watch the Talk with Jaime Hayón