World > Europe > The Netherlands

Zuiderzee Museum

This hip museum celebrates a vanished Dutch past. Created in 1948 on the edge of what was once the Zuider Zee, or South See, and spread across 27 acres and some 200 buildings in Enkhuizen, this picture-perfect re-creation of a centuries-old fishing village, complete with ruddy-faced actresses strolling by in lace caps and clog-shod men smoking herring outdoors, is undergoing a radical transformation under new director, Erik Schilp.

Stroll into a 19th-century farmhouse and you'll now find an art installation by Studio Job, whose principals, Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel, have recast everyday rural implements - a bucket, a pitchfork - in gelaming bronze. Or wander through the museum proper (in buildings once belonging to the Dutch East India Company) and you might see looks by Viktor & Rolf inspired by traditional dutch costumes, or Alexander van Slobbe's reinterpretations of seafaring men's wear, or 17th-century porcelain tulip pyramids reimagined by the likes of Jurgen Bey and Hella Jongerius.