The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is adding 22 mature trees and works by Giacometti, Bourgeois, and Calder to its city center. A $70 million donation from the Don Quixote Foundation is funding the transformation of three existing pavilions into a single permanent sculpture garden, opening free to the public in fall 2026.
The garden sits steps from the main museum on Museumplein, Amsterdam's cultural heart. British architects Foster + Partners and Belgian landscape designer Piet Blanckaert are reshaping the space into exhibition galleries surrounded by native plants and flowering gardens. The project itself will cost around $11.6 million, with the remaining donation supporting other museum programs.
For Ans Lievense, a four-decade resident of the neighborhood, the timing feels overdue. "I'm for nature, and there will be so many new trees that it will be terrific," she says. The new greenery will increase Amsterdam's urban biodiversity while giving the museum's nearly 2.5 million annual visitors a place to sit with art in natural light.
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Start Your News DetoxThe Rijksmuseum, home to Vermeer's The Milkmaid and Rembrandt's The Night Watch, is already one of Europe's most-visited institutions. This garden expansion is part of a broader push to reach more people — the museum also announced plans last December to open a branch in Eindhoven, in the southern Netherlands, to increase access to its collection beyond Amsterdam.
The permit application is submitted. If construction stays on track, you'll be able to walk through kinetic Calders and Louise Bourgeois installations surrounded by trees and flowers by autumn 2026.
