Museumnacht Rotterdam

Our resident Ruben from Cobana had a great night at Museumnacht Rotterdam! Read his blog below and find out what museums and art he has seen.

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VWhat goes around, comes around. It is true for many things, as it is for the Museumnight!
One night a year, a multitude of museums open their doors to everyone with the museumnight ticket.
 
If you don't frequently visit museums this is a great opportunity to discover all kinds of new places. My friend and I set out with one mission: see as many museums as possible.
Geography was our first constraint. Some museums were outliers, while others were clustered together. Even by bike it would be hard to fit in all museums in just four hours.
We figured the best start would be at Witte de With, where ten museums were clustered within walking distance.

In the first place, V2_Lab, we found human-like sand grains projected on a wall. After having a Club Mate we moved on to our next stop: the Performance bar. Weirded out by a person in panties being ‘waved alive’ with branches, we decided that was not our forte and left.
Only a corner away was TENT. Being utterly confused by the display of coffee bags, oil and attributes of the city of Napels and Feijenoord we could not make out what it was about. It was a statement about the dependency of Rotterdam on fossil fuels – like living on a volcano as in Napels. Many other museums in the street also had active themes around climate change.
 
The new gem of the city of course is the Depot of Booijmans van Beuningen. Adorned with mirrors it reflects all surroundings directly back at you. Unfortunately while it was on the map, we could only marvel from the outside.
This corner was also full of museums. We visited the Huis Sonneveld, a futuristic house from the 1930’s and Het Nieuwe Instituut.
 
Last stop was both far away and close to home: Verhalenhuis Belvédère. A building on Katendrecht with a moving past.
We arrived ten minutes to closing time, but fortunately could still take a small tour. Downstairs used to be a jazz café during the 30’s and 40’s, where famous jazz musicians performed. Now it’s a cultural centre. Upstairs is a housing unit preserved in time, where an elderly couple lived from the midwar 1940’s until the early 2000’s.
 
With countless museums on the list, we couldn’t visit them all. So we would like to ask you, which museums would you recommend?

Ruben (Cobana resident)