Museum De Buitenplaats
Where Art Nouveau, Nature and History Meet
In the quiet village of Eelde in the province of Drenthe, Museum De Buitenplaats is one of the Netherlands’ most charming and distinctive cultural destinations — and the only museum in the country dedicated entirely to Art Nouveau. Since 2024, it has become a fully integrated part of the Drents Museum in Assen, bringing together under one identity a site of exceptional beauty that combines historic architecture, contemporary exhibition spaces, and a magnificent garden into a single, seamless experience.
The museum’s origins lie in the seventeenth-century Nijsinghhuis, a historic mansion that was in a serious state of disrepair when the Van Groeningen-Hazenberg family acquired it in 1971. Its meticulous restoration gradually gave way to a larger ambition: the creation of a museum to house a growing collection of figurative and Art Nouveau art. The museum pavilion, designed in 1996 by Architectenbureau Alberts and Van Huut in a distinctive organic architectural style that echoes the flowing forms of Art Nouveau itself, completed the ensemble and gave the site its extraordinary character — a building and a garden conceived as one.
A Site of Three Treasures
De Buitenplaats is best understood as three experiences woven together. The museum pavilion hosts twice-yearly changing exhibitions with a strong focus on Art Nouveau, drawing on the Drents Museum’s exceptional collection of art from around 1900 alongside national and international loans. Current and upcoming exhibitions explore the movement’s enduring relevance with the same richness and decorative energy that defined it at its peak.
The Nijsinghhuis is the absolute jewel of the site. Its interior walls and ceilings are covered in remarkable murals by some of the leading figures of the northern figurative movement — Wout Muller, Clary Mastenbroek, Matthijs Röling, Olga Wiese, and Pieter Pander — making it a place of genuine artistic significance that rewards slow, attentive looking.
And then there is the garden. Designed by landscape architect Jørn Copijn and garden architect Charlotte Korthals Altes, it unfolds across three distinct garden chambers — a maze, a pond garden, and an apple orchard — with sculpture installations that change with the seasons. In summer, outdoor sculpture exhibitions and regular concerts make the garden a destination in its own right, a rare green oasis where art and nature exist in complete harmony.
Whether you come for the Art Nouveau collection, the painted rooms of the Nijsinghhuis, or simply an afternoon of quiet beauty in one of Drenthe’s most carefully tended gardens, Museum De Buitenplaats offers an experience that stays with you long after you leave.
