In the new exhibitions the audience is taken to Oudeschild in the Golden Age. The museum’s showpiece is a model of the Reede van Texel of 18 x 4 metres. The model shows in detail the impressive spectacle of hundreds of ships along Texel’s coast. Special viewers allow visitors to zoom in on these scenes, and show exciting animations. Animated scenes from seventeenth-century paintings, projected onto a twenty-metre-long wall behind the model, show a glimpse of what the rhythm of day and night was like during life at sea. Nine rooms of discovery take the visitor further along into the Dock’s world. In each of these rooms history is brought to life through a spatial installation or a piece from the collection and by means of a seventeenth-century figure.
On view
Beachcombers
and sailors
Oudeschild, Texel (NL)
Very few people know about Texel’s infamous VOC history. The fleet of the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie’s (United East Indian Company) used to start its journeys to the East from its moorings at the ‘Reede van Texel’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the time Texel was the equivalent to the Netherlands’ Schiphol airport. This special history is being told in KAAP SKIL, museum of beachcombers and sailors. The building, designed by Mecanoo Architects, houses two new exhibitions, a museum café and a shop, all designed by Kossmanndejong.
The first floor houses a research laboratory where visitors can admire objects that had been lost, derived from shipwrecks found along Texel’s shores. Innumerable seventeenth- and eighteenth-century objects are displayed thematically, but there is also a showcase that shows all the objects found in one shipwreck. The found objects raise questions about the history of seafaring. By linking the objects to different perspectives, they are put in certain contexts through which they offer us a new point of view on history. The exhibition also offers space for objects found by amateur divers.
The ground floor houses a museum café and a shop. Alongside having a function for the museum, this space is also a meeting place for Texel’s residents. Because the floor is covered in paving, the space’s open character is emphasised. Thus the street, the museum shop and café and the terrace are interconnected. The layout of the shop reflects that of a contemporary fish auction. Characteristic white and blue fish crates have been integrated in both the counter and the museum shop. Suspended from the ceiling is a large map of Texel, made out of Texel wool. The map, composed of felt and knitted pieces, has been put together by artist Erna van Sambeek in collaboration with various Texel-based women.
SBID International Design Awards 2012
Shortlisted
FX International Interior Design Awards 2012
Shortlisted
Luigi Micheletti Award 2014
Special Commendation