Peek inside Nederlands Fotomuseum ahead of its 2025 opening

Nederlands Fotomuseum exterior in construction

(Image credit: Studio Hans Wilschut)

The new Nederlands Fotomuseum, set in Rotterdam's wider Rijnhaven dock area, has been rapidly taking shape. The structure, a beloved existing building's redesign and extension by Renner Hainke Wirth Zirn Archtitekten, Hamburg and WDJARCHITECTEN, Rotterdam, is well underway; with its building works now completed and the development focus turning to its interiors. The estimated opening date is in 2025.

Nederlands Fotomuseum building empty still in construction rough material and utilitarian details

Nederlands Fotomuseum: work in progress

The Santos warehouse, the period structure on site which the museum project is breathing a new life into, first opened in 1903. Designed by architects JP Stok Wzn and JJ Kanters, it served as storage for the Brazilian coffee trade.

The new photography museum's home is set to boast eight floors for exhibitions, including space for its own collection, alongside studios, a specialist photography bookshop, education areas, and a rooftop restaurant.

The leisure facilities at the very top promise to offer striking vistas of Rotterdam's skyline, one of the Netherlands' finest architectural ones, including landmark buildings such as UNStudio's Erasmus Bridge and OMA's De Rotterdam.

Come 2025, the institution will officially move from its current location on the Wilhelminapier (where it's been since 2007), to the neighbourhood of Katendrecht, across the water. The new building, funded with the help of the Droom en Daad foundation, was acquired in 2023.

The museum's director Birgit Donker has said: 'We are excited about the completion of the renovation phase and look forward to the opening of our new location in Katendrecht next year. This new chapter allows us to continue our mission to celebrate, explore and promote photography as a powerful medium. '

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).