The construction of the museum was completed in 1973, where collects more than 200 pieces of Van Gogh’s paintings as well as more than 500 pieces of his sketches. And more than 850 letters Van Gogh has ever written to Theo--his young brother are also kept in the museum.With the increase of visitors, the previous exhibition hall can no longer introduce more ones.Therefore, in 1999, Kiso Kurokawa, an Japanese architect, designed a new flank for it.
On November, 2015, the museum finished its second renovation and extension.
This renovation and extension structure was for the museum’s entrance hall, which was designed by Holland Hans van Heeswijk Architects team. The new hall persisted Kisho’s oval shape design and newly added a glass space, which elegantly introduced the visitors to the basement——Van Gogh Space.
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The glass space was exquisitely constructed, presenting a concave arc spherical top surface by making full use of the glass beam’s length difference. The structure is integrated smoothly into the original building, the bright contrast of “partly visible” and “partly hidden”of which gives the whole museum a refreshing vitality.
This renovation project required super high quality of the glass material. The super large glass beam at the building’s top surface as well as the super large glass rib at the façade were manufactured by NorthGlass’ Tianjin branch company, which specializes in manufacturing high quality large glass products.
The highlight of such a glass beam is the three layers’ super-white SGP lined adhesive tempering glass with the thickness of 15mm and the longest length of 12m. The whole top surface of the building is made of glass with obstruction-free view, which seems like a crystal clear clamshell floating in the sky with an array of shining stars.
At nights, when standing at the entrance of the museum and looking up at the sky through the glass dome, as if there is Van Gogh in the front.