Page 20 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2016 - Amsterdam

18 ❯❯ Top 10 Amsterdam Highlights

Rijksmuseum Features

The Building
1 Museum Floorplan
The architect P J H Cuypers
attracted strong criticism from the 9
Protestant community, who took
exception to the building’s Neo-
Gothic roofs and ornately 8
decorated façade. King William III 0 6
refused to set foot inside. 4
5
The Garden
2 7
A little-known, immaculate
haven, it is studded with statues 3
and architectural curiosities.
Atrium
3 Key to Floorplan

Ground floor
The entrance and heart of
the museum, the two courtyards of First floor
Second floor
the Atrium – now restored to their Third floor
original 1885 condition – are linked
Special Collection
by an underground passageway. 7
The Special Collection ranges
Terrazzo Floor
4 from amusing to bizarre: rooms full
of boxes, animals, Meissen porcelain,
Covered in 1920 and hacked
away in the late 20th century, miniature silver, an armoury, and
Cuypers’ original terrazzo floor has even the hair of Jacoba of Bavaria,
been restored to its former glory. the 15th-century Countess of
Hundreds of thousands of small Holland and Zeeland.
marble stones make up this floor,
The Golden Age
which is rich in symbolism. 8
Renowned the world over for
Library
5 its 17th-century collection, the
The library is only open
Rijksmuseum draws many visitors
to researchers of art history, to see paintings by Dutch Masters
but museum visitors can have a such as Rembrandt, Vermeer,
look through a large glass wall Jan Steen and Frans Hals.
to view its impressive interior
Modern Art
and book collection. 9
Two loft-like spaces
Asian Pavilion
6 on the third floor house art
A quiet, meditative place,
from the 20th century:
this is a wonderful retreat one 1900–1950; the
from the swarming other 1950–2000.
masses. Elsewhere,
Great Hall
Dutch art 0
proliferates; the The second-
Asian Pavilion floor Great Hall has
offers an been reconstructed
insight into a to how it looked
different culture, in Cuypers’
with works day, with
spanning elaborate,
4,000 years beautiful late 19th-
from 2000 BC. Seated Guanyin, Asian Pavilion century decoration.
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