As part of the Drents Museum, Museum De Buitenplaats should play a connecting role between culture and the residents of Eelde. The Tynaarlo municipal council discussed the future plans of the museum tonight and seems prepared to pay for it. The municipality is asked to pay a dowry of 1.15 million euros to the Het Drentse Landschap foundation.
That party will take care of the maintenance of De Buitenplaats museum, according to the plans. The province of Drenthe also contributes to the dowry, but that was already known for a while. The Tynaarlo municipal council will need more time to consider the future of the museum.
To get the council factions interested in the plans, an enthusiastic story was needed from Harry Tupan. The director of the Drents Museum wants to turn De Buitenplaats into an Art Nouveau museum with eventually 30,000 visitors per year. “We will save that,” he said during the extra council meeting on December 19, 2023. “The Buitenplaats will not become an annex of the Drents Museum, but a full-fledged part.”
Tupan also encouraged more cooperation in the village, including the Flower Parade and local entrepreneurs. “The Drents Museum provides a spin-off of 50 euros per visitor. We will not be able to achieve that in Eelde, but there will certainly be something left to do.”
Peter Tholen, resident of Eelde and chairman of the Friends of the Buitenplaats foundation, spoke of a ‘golden opportunity for art’. “For the museum, entrepreneurs and residents.”
Although the museum has done everything it can to attract people from the area since its opening in 1998, according to Tholen, this has not been successful, according to several council factions.
“The museum is not for everyone at the moment,” says Henk Middendorp (CDA). He would therefore like to see the museum do more to strengthen its ties with Eelde-Paterswolde in the future. According to him, this could be done by including in the statutes that there must be room for local art and culture, although other council factions and responsible councilor Hans de Graaf (Christian Union) do not think it is a good idea to impose this from politics. “So far, the museum has proven to be perfectly capable of taking care of the contents of the museum itself,” says De Graaf.
De Graaf further promises that De Buitenplaats will become a museum ‘of, for and by’ Eelden residents. This connection is also a requirement for the various factions. Els Kardol (D66) even wants a separate committee within the organization that focuses on the relationship between museum and village.
Jacob van Gelder (Municipal Interests) sees the collaboration with the Drents Museum and Het Drentse Landschap ‘a lifebuoy’. “But now let the center merge with the museum. This is the opportunity.”
There are still some doubts about the dowry. “Is it realistic that we contribute as much as the province of Drenthe?” Erik Gerritsen (PvdA) wondered out loud. “The entire collection will be owned by the Drents Museum?”
In addition, an additional subsidy of more than €300,000 is expected from the municipality for the first four years and Tynaarlo will also pay the same subsidy as the province after that time. Some factions find this difficult to understand. “That emerged after the negotiations,” said councilor De Graaf. “But if the museum receives many more visitors than the expected 30,000 by then, we can discuss this again and possibly reduce the subsidy.”
Councilor Jacob van Gelder could not resist recalling the museum’s past 25 years. “25 years of promises, but what has been done with them? I think the residents of Eelde have been frequently disappointed by politics over the years. What can I tell the residents later? What have we decided?”
The answer to that is short: nothing yet. This will happen during the council meeting on Tuesday, January 30. Then the green light must finally be given for the museum’s future plans and thus the collaboration with the Drents Museum and Het Drentse Landschap.