Once the home of a ship owner, now a national monument, the Museum Vlaardingen has a collection that gives visitors insight into the last 5,000 years of life in the delta of the rivers Rhine and Maas in the Netherlands.In 2014-2015, the premises underwent a striking makeover. Houdijk Architecten were tasked with redesigning the structure.
Respect for heritage
The museum's brief included integration of an adjacent building and a detached warehouse to its rear. The resulting design shows respect for heritage complimented by modern spaces and materials such as concrete, glass and steel.
Modern interpretation
Where old meets new, glazed apertures have been created in the existing exterior masonry walls. The resulting sightlines reveal the museum's spatial complexity, with loft-like heights and dynamic views, tempting and drawing visitors into the spaces that lie beyond. Meanwhile, a fully glazed facade on the north side of the addition floods the building with natural daylight. The strikingly asymmetrical pitched roof acts as a unifying element, offering a modern interpretation of the surrounding traditional roofing while integrating the renovated heritage structure and its new addition.
Glass alone
Architect Wijnand Houdijk explains that the many level changes and loft-like spaces in the design meant it was important to find a balustrade solution unobstructed by a conventional handrail or metal grip. That meant finding a full glass balustrade. To achieve this, the architects collaborated with Q-railing, ultimately narrowing in on the Easy Glass Pro Y-shaped fascia mount solution.
In addition to providing a completely transparent balustrade solution, the Easy Glass Pro Y glass balustrade offered the ability to make fine adjustments to the positioning of each glass panel from the inner (installation) side. This proved invaluable when it was installed on the various sections of finished concrete flooring levels.
Houdijk stated that he was very pleased with the implementation of his design for the Museum Vlaardingen. “If you walk through the building, the glazing and glass balustrade solutions work very well to achieve my desired concept for transparency.”
Glass balustrade Easy Glass Pro in Museum Vlaardingen
In June 2015 the fully renovated Museum Vlaardingen reopened its doors. The Easy Glass Pro glass balustrade stars in this spectacular ‘past-meets-present’ project.