Wereldmuseum Amsterdam

A world in one building

The Wereldmuseum Amsterdam stands on the Linnaeusstraat, at the edge of the Oosterpark. Until 2023 it was the Tropenmuseum, and many Amsterdammers still use that name. The building is a big colonial-era one from 1926, and it is worth seeing from the outside before you go in.

The museum shows world cultures, both living traditions and history. The collection holds 153,000 objects and 210,000 historic photographs. There are paintings, sound recordings and video, a large body of textile from Indonesia, and many objects from New Guinea and Suriname. Give it time. This is not a place for a quick look.

From Haarlem to the Linnaeusstraat

The story starts in 1864, when Frederik Willem van Eeden founded the Koloniaal Museum in Haarlem. From 1871 it was housed in Paviljoen Welgelegen. It ran out of space, and a new building was planned in Amsterdam, designed by the Van Nieukerken firm from The Hague. The core of the collection is the old Haarlem colonial collection joined with the ethnographic collection from Artis.

Keep that in mind as you walk round. Most of the objects come from the former Dutch overseas territories, and the museum began as part of the colonial project. Today it asks questions about that past instead of just displaying it. The permanent exhibition Things That Matter, which opened in 2018, is one place to see this.

The name changed several times. It was the Tropenmuseum from 1950. In 2014 it merged with the museums in Leiden and Berg en Dal to form the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. In 2023 it became the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam.

The building has a wartime story too. In 1940 the Germans took over the Royal Institute for the Tropics for their Grüne Polizei, but left the museum itself alone, so it stayed open. The curator, Gerard Tichelman, made use of that. He printed illegal information, stored weapons and transmitters, and helped people into hiding, among them Henk Colijn, son of the former prime minister. A raid found something only once, and his part stayed secret through the war.

What to look for

Start with the textiles. The Indonesian collection is a real strength, and the weaving and dyeing reward a slow look. Then find the objects from New Guinea and Suriname, which the museum holds in large numbers.

Read the labels with the history in mind. Who made an object, who collected it, and how did it end up in Amsterdam? The museum invites you to ask.

See what is on during your visit. The temporary exhibitions have a long record, from Bali and the Sahara to fashion in African cities and sexual diversity in China. Something new is usually showing.

If you like photographs, the museum gave 50,000 images from its collection to Wikimedia Commons between 2009 and 2015. It was one of the first Dutch institutions to work with Wikipedia in this way.