Straat Museum: Street Art in a Former Warehouse

Straat Museum (Street Museum): street art and museum, is this a contradiction? Painting an artistic story on buildings is no longer regarded as vandalism. Street art adorns buildings and bridges and conveys a colourful message. Straat Museum in Amsterdam shows a collection of more than 150 paintings in a former welding shed at the NDSM wharf. The exhibition is not like a traditional museum, but is  a new concept how to present art.
Straat Museum hosts works of national and international artists: a colorful collection of different styles and techniques. Some works of art are as large as buildings, others are tiny, such as the funny bunnies and birds of Bunny Brigade that pop up in unexpected places.

Straat Museum and Street Art

The art collection in the Straat Museum is impressive. The walls are full of large-size works of art, all are colourful and dynamic. Street art is one of the largest contemporary art movements and an essential part of urban life. This was not always so. Some fifty years ago street art was an illegal underground activity, today it is one of the most relevant art forms. Street art does not disgrace buildings, on the contrary it adds an extra dimension. It makes buildings more beautiful and more interesting because every work of art tells a story and is part of the urban scene, wherever in the world.

Straat Museum: Street Art is True Art

You often only see street art from the corner of your eye, in passing. Rarely will you stop in the middle of the street to look more closely at a painting. The Straat Museum gives you the opportunity to stand in front of an artwork and let the intensity, colours and size sink in. The welding warehouse is the perfect location for this type of art. It is not a confined place like a traditional museum, but the visitor move in an open space where urban feeling and open space predominate.

Welding Warehouse as an Exhibition Space

These gigantic works of art need a gigantic hall to display them. The welding warehouse is perfectly suited for the exhibition as it is big, almost the same size as one and a half a football fields. Giant ship components were welded together in this warehouse, and came out as a ship or a hull. The production crane is still in operation, and the rails running through the warehouse is still there.
Today, this warehouse is the exhibition room of the Straat Museum. Daylight enters through the glass roof and creates a natural light effect on the works of art. The hall is divided into streets, squares and intersections. All this reinforces the urban feeling.

How to get there

Straat Museum, located on the NDSM site, is abandoned and neglected industrial heritage, the perfect spot to display street art. The façade of the former welding warehouse is adorned with a portrait of Anne Frank, street art at its best. All around the site you will find street art and graffiti, and artists at work.

Address: Straat Museum, NDSM-Plein 1, Amsterdam

Public transport: free pedestrian-only ferries sail directly to the NDSM wharf. Take from Amsterdam Central Station  the left ferry to NDSM.

By car to the NDSM wharf: On the A10, take the exit S116 or S118 and follow the signs Noord 180. Park at the NDSM site, pay at the parking meter with pin or via a parking app

photo Wiki Commons