Rembrandt Van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Vincent van Gogh, Hieronymus Bosch, Piet Mondrian. From the Dutch Golden Age to Modernism, many of The Netherlands’ extraordinary artists achieved greatness. Today they continue to influence the world of art with their omnipresence throughout Amsterdam’s many museums, historic buildings, and contemporary design.
To see as many of Amsterdam’s museums as possible, I checked into the Avani Museum Quarter Amsterdam, a stylish new hotel housed in a refurbished mid-century building in the heart of the city’s “Museumplein” museum district. The 163-room property offered a quiet stay, floor-to-ceiling canal views, and fantastic proximity to all four institutions of Museum Square: the grand Rijksmuseum, showcasing Dutch art and history; the world’s definitive Van Gogh Museum; Moco Museum’s contemporary pop art; and the Stedelijk Museum, known for its international avant-garde art and design collection.
The vast quantities of world-class art to see in Amsterdam is exciting (and potentially exhausting), so Avani Museum Quarter Hotel’s GM Jens Lambrecht, suggested a novel way to banish jet lag and prepare for my three-day museum hop: an immersive mindfulness movement session in Amsterdam’s largest and most beautiful urban green space, Vondelpark. It’s one of Avani’s “meaningful and joyful” city experience programs that he curates with local cultural partners.
Since it was a particularly sunshiny day on one of the last warm, rain-free days of the year, Vondelpark indeed was the place to be. Everyone in Amsterdam seemed to agree. Happy locals were everywhere — picnicking, biking, strolling, and just soaking up the rays among the park’s picturesque gardens, lawns, lakes and public art.
There, Lambrecht and I joined a small group of equally jet-lagged tourists to meet a good-humored ambassador of THIS.IS.EDEN, local wellness practitioners that combine dance with meditation set to an electronic soundtrack. The twist is that it’s done in public spaces and the music is delivered through individual headsets, “silent disco” style.
The sight left passersby wondering what us weirdos were doing as we swayed and twirled to music that only our small group could hear. But before I had a chance to become too self-conscious, I saw an elderly woman start to dance, too. Then two inquisitive children and a playful dog joined us and suddenly it was smiles and good vibes all around, leaving us all with a sense of wellbeing that felt like a big group hug.
Properly readied for museum hopping, my first cultural destination was The Stedelijk Museum in Museum Square, just a few scenic blocks from my canal-front hotel. The Stedelijk showcases world-famous works and new discoveries in modern and contemporary art and design in three chronological parts to provide unique perspectives. The Amsterdam School, Functionalism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, CoBrA and the avant-garde are discussed and disparate works — by van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Le Corbusier, Kazimir Malevish, Karel Appel and some 300 more — are hung side-by-side. By showing well-known works together with lesser-knowns, other stories rise to the surface.
Returning to my hotel to regroup, I now noticed how different elements of Avani’s interior design referenced the artists I had just seen at the Stedlijk. The geometric patterns and block colors of the carpets, tiles and furnishings were intentionally inspired by the works of renowned 20th century artists, including Piet Mondrian, Anni Albers, Gunta Stolzl and Sophie Taeuber. Clean lines and practical furniture pay homage to Dutch functionalism and rationalism, while mirrors and polished surfaces echo the city’s tranquil canals. Even the building’s exterior bricks and the many paint colors inside my guest room echoed the city’s architectural identity by matching the forms and colors of the historic row houses directly across the canal, visible from my window.
It helped me realize that there’s art everywhere in Amsterdam if you just keep your eyes open. Especially in the vibrant Jordaan neighborhood which I explored on foot with a treasure map of murals, statues and arty graffiti to look for. The fun, self-guided Street Art Tour was created for Avani to help guests really get to know the city by zigzagging up and down residential streets, asking friendly locals for clues, and discovering off-the-beaten path shops, cafes, and specialty museums devoted to tulips and cheese.
That’s how I met Monique, an author and painter who lives on a 150-year-old UNESCO-protected houseboat on a lovely canal. I asked for directions, friendly chitchat ensued, and before I knew it I was invited inside for a peek. While I gasped at the surprisingly spacious, comfortable and modern interior, she told me all about her happy houseboat life in Jordaan, “the oldest and most beautiful neighborhood in Amsterdam.”
By this time I had fallen head over heels in love with Amsterdam. And not only because of the Dutch pancakes served for breakfast at my Avani hotel. The tiny, fluffy treats fueled me for the last place on my Amsterdam museum bucket list. Saving the biggest for last, I visited the city’s newest museum, the STRAAT, which gives the world’s most talented graffiti and street artists the respect they deserve in a protected setting.
Museum curators erected enormous canvases inside an enormous vacant shipyard warehouse, and invited big names and new talent from all over the world to create genre masterpieces on the spot, on a massive scale. The awesome skill of the STRAAT artists is inspiring, to say the least, especially to local street artists who’ve added unwelcome graffiti to the building’s exterior and adjacent blocks.
To help reduce the urge to illicitly paint graffiti, the STRAAT offers weekend opportunities for wannabe Banksys, Basquiats and Shepard Faireys (like me) to don coveralls and practice basic graffiti art skills by spray painting a cluster of shipping containers. Though my first graffiti portrait of an alien cyclops is no Rembrandt, it was a blast to paint. Bonus: I now have bragging rights to say that I have a painting on the wall of one of Amsterdam’s biggest and best museums.
Where to Stay: Avani Museum Quarter Amsterdam is a five-minute walk to four of the city’s most popular museums, and bustling PC Hoofstraat, the city’s best luxury designer shopping street (think Armani, Cartier, Chanel, Dior, Hermes, Prada, and Louis Vuitton) and the hip De Pijp neighborhood. Amsterdam Centraal train station is a ten-minute taxi ride away, and for business travelers, the RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre is a 25-minute walk.
