“You are that museum that you cannot enter, aren’t you?”, employees of the Stedelijk Museum Meppel are sometimes told. Yes, but there is little the museum can do about that. For years it wanted an elevator, but it never happened. But soon everyone will be able to enter, because the entire museum is moving.
Since the 1980s, the Stedelijk Museum Meppel has been at its current location, in the middle of the Hoofdstraat in the center of Meppel. It is located there in a national monument from 1910. Until 1972 this was the town hall of Meppel. In the eighties it became a museum and was still called Kunsthuis Secretarie. During corona times it was transferred to Stedelijk Museum Meppel. The museum will move to a new location in March.
The current building is hardly accessible to the disabled. To enter the museum you have to go up an old narrow natural stone platform. “That sounds very chic. Natural stone stairs, beautiful cast iron railing. And then the platform where you can wave,” says Mieke Mulders, curator and temporary chairman of the museum. “And then you stand there with your mobility scooter or walker. It’s quite scary, and the steps can also be slippery. It’s a very narrow entrance, it’s also the only way to get in.”