The secret garden
A visit to the Kröller-Müller Museum
written by Annabel Loftus
Creative at VBAT
The secret garden
A few weeks ago I visited the Kröller-Müller Museum outside Arnhem in Otterlo. The museum is placed in the Hoge Veluwe National Park. The observations I had when walking towards the museum was a spacious surrounding with extremely tall trees. It was a cold sunny day and a lot of the snow had melted which looks beautiful in the context.
The museum’s facade itself instantly made me think of the pioneers Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier’s work E1027. The style in which Henry Van der Velde, the architect of the museum wanted to convey is a movement of adaptability of a gallery to its natural environment. Enclosed with windows from most of its walls, the museum sheds sunlight from all angles at different times of the day.
The beauty of the linear structure is so simple and affective as a journey is made in the site. The plan of a long corridor into the entrance and the different straight linear planes, the journey is long but affective.
Taking in each piece of work slowly, is strongly dependant on the layout and design of its interior.
Henry Van de Velde was a Belgian architect, originally an artist he left the paintbrush for a drafting table to pursue interior design and architecture. He had been inspired by the arts and crafts movement and had created Art Nouveau interiors for expositions and furniture design showrooms. Surprisingly, his portfolio of work is broad from his ‘pointillist’ style paintings had emerged into a sharper aesthetic for his designs — the architect is shown to be a talented individual with a wide skill set. The Arts and Crafts movement was all about combining art and design as a celebration of decorative styles after all.
The Museum was commissioned by the owner, Helene Kröller-Müller, an avid art collector who was one of the first to recognise Van Gogh’s talent. The sculpture garden and the museum’s extension was added later on.
“Helene had dreamt of her own ‘museum house’, where she could share her love of modern art with everyone. She saw that dream materialize in 1938 when the Kröller-Müller Museum opened its doors.” — Krollermuller.nl
The well known ‘Rietveld Pavillion’ is built as an exhibition of sculptures for Barbara Hepworth’s work. Originally, it was built with major concern to protecting the structure, it was disassembled and rebuilt in 2010 to look as much like the original designed by Gerrit Rietveld. I didn't even realise that he had designed this less well known piece, but that is the beauty of the gallery of hidden delights.
The structure captures modern simplicity in a delicate but raw matter. The concrete imposes sharp clean lines which fits in well with the linear trees.
Perfectly aligned perspectives, the form is a sculpture itself that represents Hepworth’s contrasting curves in a stronger standing point.
With this structure, I would like to compare the Barbara Hepworth Museum in Cornwall which I have been to, with a sculpture garden that shows her more personal work in her home county. Her work here is best in an intimate surrounding, supported by her studio that had been left as it is. The use of Rietveld’s showcase structure is simple and effective in the sense of combining nature and Hepworth’s work.
What had worked well on this busy but quiet Sunday is the space that had allowed a more chilled out gallery experience. Contemporary sculptures that mimic nature, like ‘Jardin d’email’ of Jean Dubuffet, and the classic female body like L’Air by Aristide Maillol have created a diversified range of styles for all ages. As well as fun, but also knowledge emerged from the park itself as one discovers a new area to stroll and look closer into the sculptures.
The gallery itself is elaborate, with heavy pieces of art highly valued, the gallery chambers were designed accordingly to eras and styles. With one of my favourite paintings by Juan Gris ‘Playing Cards with Siphon’ dedicates a lot of cubist paintings on the spotlight of the gallery. The work Helene had collected is astounding, and shows that she had good taste.
I do recommend a visit to this gallery, it isn’t that hard to get to, around 2 hours from Amsterdam overall.
It had inspired me as a designer to understand private art in a more exclusive manner, as the visitor is reconnected to nature.
I would also like to share this last photograph from the museum’s interior which to me sums up the design, natural lighting and feel:
If the architect was once an artist, I could relate to that due to my start in painting before design. The museum itself had accomplished his vision as a designer and an artist, arguing against the norms of the designer-artist boundary. Personally, this is a debatable topic — but in the future a creative individual should not be bound by labels although should not get too pretentious in the technicalities of being a designer. Alike Henry van der Velde, I too changed from loose lines to straighter ones, not to conform, but to develop the art of design.
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written by Annabel Loftus, Creative at VBAT
edited by Connie Fluhme, PR at VBAT
