STRAAT Museum

A street-art museum in a shipyard hall

STRAAT is a museum of street art and graffiti, and it is big. The space covers about 8,000 square metres, and inside you will find more than 180 works by over 170 artists. Many are the size of a house wall. You walk among them under a very high roof, and the scale is the first thing you notice.

It is worth the trip because it is a different Amsterdam. You leave the canals, cross the water and end up on the old industrial side of the IJ, in the NDSM neighbourhood. The free ferries behind Centraal Station are the easy way over, and the short crossing already sets the mood. The art matches the place: raw, large and made to be seen from far away.

From welding hall to museum

The building was a welding warehouse. Later it housed part of the IJ-hallen, known as the largest flea market in Europe. The street-art story starts with the owner, Peter Hoogerwerf. He asked the curator David Roos, who later became the museum's head curator, to help decorate the space. They brought in some of the street art that already covered the NDSM area.

The collection grew fast. At the end of 2015 the two decided to turn the whole hall into a museum. It did not go smoothly. A leaking roof was judged unsafe, and then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. STRAAT finally opened on 9 October 2020. In 2024 it had an estimated 220,000 visitors.

Most of the works were made on site, painted for these walls and not moved in from elsewhere. That is why they can be so large.

What to look for

Start outside. The most prominent mural on the façade is a portrait of Anne Frank, painted in 2016 by the Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra. Look at how the face is broken into bright, sharp-edged pieces. If you plan to visit the house where she wrote her diary, this is a quiet way to meet her image first.

Inside, take your time with the names. The collection includes Cornbread, SJK 171, Julio 204 and Inkie, alongside Shepard Fairey, Guido van Helten, Buff Monster and Royyal Dog. Notice how different the styles are: lettering, portraits, cartoons, huge painted faces. Some pieces are meant to be read from across the hall, others reward standing close.

Go up to the mezzanine gallery too. It holds temporary exhibitions by up-and-coming artists, so it is different from one visit to the next.

Nearby

Back on the city side, the Fabrique des Lumières shows projected art inside the gasholder building at the Westergasfabriek. For something calmer, finish on the Brouwersgracht, with its warehouses and houseboats.