Rotterdam – The stories of the St. Lawrence Church – Kossmann.dejong

ST. LAWRENCE CHURCH | A MONUMENT FILLED WITH STORIES
permanent exhibition designed by Kossmann.dejong

Since 2010, the St. Lawrence Church in Rotterdam, a protestant temple built between 1449 and 1525, houses a permanent exhibition designed by the Dutch practice Kossmann.dejong, also responsible for the exhibition design for the Danish Maritime Museum by Bjarke Ingels Group.

This project is quite interesting and peculiar, it is indeed the first time that a permanent exhibition is installed in a church in the Netherlands; furthermore, the museum does not focus on sacred art, but on the history of the city through that of the St Lawrence Church depicted by a series of about 20 thematic sections.

Each of the side chapels of the church accommodates a different story related to the church itself and to the city of Rotterdam; the result is a narration where objects and audiovisuals talk about past and present, life and death, the bombings of the city during the WW2 – which also badly damaged the St Lawrence Church – and its reconstruction.

The permanent exhibition is aimed to arouse questions and considerations and invites people to explore the site more thoroughly. As Herman Kossmann, one of the two founders of Kossmann.dejong, says “ The layout has added a new layer to the church’s modest reconstruction architecture. It has not become an exhibition in the space, rather the space has become the exhibition”.

All photos © Thijs Wolzak, courtesy of Kossmann.dejong