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Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has announced that it will open a new sculpture garden in autumn 2026. The project will be funded by a donation of nearly $70 million from the Don Quijote Foundation. according to Dutch newsThe foundation is funded by Dutch billionaire Rolly van Rappard, who founded venture capital firm CVC.
The new garden is located in Carel Willinkplantsoen, a small park across the Boerenwetering canal from the Rijksmuseum. The park will be merged with three adjacent pavilions built in the “Amsterdam School” style. The National Museum has hired London architecture firm Foster + Partners to renovate the pavilion, which will soon open to the public for the first time. Belgian landscape architect Piet Blanckaert will be responsible for the garden’s design.
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Taco Dibbits, director of the National Museum, said in a statement that the new garden will “give modern sculpture the visibility it deserves. It also marks an unprecedented enhancement of the National Museum’s collection of 20th-century art.”
The museum plans to display works by artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Jean Arp, Ronny Horn and Henry Moore in the new space, as well as host temporary sculpture exhibitions within the gallery. Like the Rijksmuseum Garden—a small, flower-filled, peaceful space directly in front of the museum, also funded by the Don Quixote Foundation—the new sculpture garden will be free to enter during the day.
