Bullet through the church: The Buitenplaats becomes part of the Drents Museum

Museum De Buitenplaats in Eelde will become a full-fledged part of the Drents Museum. Tonight, the entire Tynaarlo city council approved the museum’s future plans.

This means that the maintenance of the museum will be transferred to Het Drentse Landschap. The foundation, also known as ‘protector of heritage’, receives a dowry of more than 1 million euros from the municipality. The Drents Museum is currently working on transforming De Buitenplaats into an Art Nouveau museum, with art from around 1900.

The Tynaarlo municipal council has been discussing the museum’s future plans since November, after the plans came to light in June 2023. But during additional council meetings in which Harry Tupan (director of the Drents Museum) spoke, most of the wrinkles were ironed out.

Tupan indicated, among other things, that De Buitenplaats will not become a branch of the Drents Museum, but rather a full-fledged part. A museum that should also be located in the middle of the village of Eelde.

The only real discussion that took place tonight about the museum was about a cultural center. In Eelde, work is currently underway on an approach to the village, which should also include the creation of such a central cultural center. VVD, Tynaarlo Nu and CDA submitted an amendment to reserve a place on the grounds of De Buitenplaats. This specifically concerns the location of the current appellate court on the site.

According to councilor Hans de Graaf (Christian Union), there is already one gentlemen’s agreement with Het Drentse Landschap that – if the cultural house is actually desirable on the site of the apple court – it can be built. The amendment was rejected by the city council. This meant that the CDA was the only one to vote against.

Now that the collaboration has been given the green light, the so-called ‘start-up period’ can begin. This runs until 2028 and is intended to bring the museum back up to standard. A total of 3.3 million euros is needed for this. The municipality of Tynaarlo and the province of Drenthe both provide just over €300,000 in subsidies in the first four years. In addition, they both pay more than 1 million euros.

The Drents Museum, in turn, will pay almost €600,000, of which €250,000 will go to the acquired collection from De Buitenplaats. Furthermore, the museum is obliged to make an effort to raise at least 250,000 euros in external funds.

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