The Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Built in 1895 by architect Pierre Cuypers, it is considered one of the world’s preeminent art museums. If you’ve visited Amsterdam, you’ve probably been to the Rijksmuseum, U.S. President Obama is scheduled to visit the Rijksmuseum this coming Monday, March 24, 2014. But if you live in Portland Oregon, the Northwest Film Center will screen the film THE NEW RIJKSMUSEUM, April 12 to 13, 2014 at Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium Portland Art Museum. The film follows the renovation of the museum that took ten long and expensive years and described as a messy, complicated story but one with a glorious ending.
“The renovation of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum went on for ten long, expensive years, so it is fitting that a documentary on this torturous (and often inadvertently hilarious) process should turn into not one but two feature-length movies. Spanish architects Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz have designed an ingenious new entryway, but the Dutch Cyclists Union won’t tolerate reduced access for the 13,000 bicyclists who ride through the passageway daily. The museum’s magisterial director, Ronald de Leeuw, and his successor, the younger, scrappier Wim Pijbes, battle with curators, politicians, designers, city bureaucrats, and the public as the price of construction soars to $500 million. It’s a messy, complicated story, but fortunately, one with a glorious ending.”—Film Forum.
