Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, located next door to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam’s Museumpark and designed by MVRDV, is the first art depot in the world to be fully accessible to the public. Visitors can see the result of over a hundred and seventy years of collecting: more than 151,000 objects of art and design, housed in fourteen storage spaces, are arranged by material, size, and sometimes chronology or geography. All the activities involved in the management and conservation of a collection are also on view. This is a fascinating account of a unique new type of museum building and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen collection.

This book covers all the phases in its creation, from the first crazy ideas to the last work of art to be rehoused. It takes you on a journey through the building and provides brief glimpses of the storage compartments on each floor. The essays describe the growing collection, its storage conditions over the last 172 years, and the Depot’s design and construction process. We also talked to the designers and artists involved about their contributions to the building.