museum spakenburg

Stories can be found everywhere in the little village on the edge of the former Zuiderzee. Short and long stories, full of contrasts and surprises. About people and things, about women and men, about farmers and fishermen, work and home, football and traditional costumes. Tinker was asked to develop a new permanent prsentation, with the exciting challenge of combining the traditional period rooms with a modern, dynamic and aesthetically strong presentation. ‘Tradition & renewal’: that would be the guiding principle for the makeover.

A tour through the museum, through 12 connected spaces, leads you past images, sounds, film and scenery that stimulate your senses each time in a different way. In the smokehouse you see the shadow of one of the workers pass by, you smell the smoked fish and you hear the crackling fire. In the space called ‘Poor and Rich’, a poor family’s home set literally in a rich farmhouse. A 20 metre-wide visual presents the closing off of the Zuiderzee, while a fisherman melancholically watches the newsreel film journal from 1932. A little further on: cups, cheering and banners between the football shirts of Blue & Red. As the grand finale, a magical space in which the traditional costume and dance seem to build in colour and tempo to give the folklore of Spakenburg pride of place.