The renovation took two and a half years and on Monday – exactly on the city’s 750th anniversary – the museum’s doors will finally open. It is an initiative of entrepreneur Duncan Stutterheim in collaboration with the Amsterdam Museum. “A gift to all Amsterdammers,” Stutterheim and museum director Judikje Kiers call it.
“There are already many museums in Amsterdam, but what we are showing here in Amsterdam in Motion is a very large model of the city,” says Kiers. “Something like this doesn’t exist yet,” Stutterheim adds.
Monster task
To digest the entire history of the city is quite a task. “How on earth are you going to pack around eight hundred years of Amsterdam in eight hundred seconds?” says project leader Paul Brouwer. The museum received the stories they tell from the City Archives.