10 things to know about Cuypers’ great library

The large skylight above the library’s reading room was a very modern innovation for its time. It meant daytime visitors didn’t need candles or gas lamps to read by.

When it was completed, this was the Netherlands’ largest art historical library, and it still is today. The collection contains a total of around 450.000 objects, which anyone is welcome to consult and study.

Next to the library’s reading room, you’ll find a place where you can study works on paper, unusual books, and other documentation – even including drawings and etchings by Old Masters.

It was Cuypers’ intention to create a space with grandeur, which seemed larger than it was. That’s why the pillars are narrower at the top and at the bottom – it makes them seem taller, and the space as a whole seem higher.

When the reading room first opened, it contained far fewer books than it does today. Nowadays it houses only a small portion of the collection, most of which is stored in tunnels beneath the building.

The decorations in the library had two functions: to celebrate art historians, and to ask visitors to be quiet. On the wall you will find a text that reads (in Dutch): Thou hast two eyes and one mouth. Let this be a sign to you – to read much, and not to speak.

Cuypers had a keen eye for symmetry. For evidence of that, check out the large decorative circle on the floor, which mirrors the staircase on the other side.

The upper sections of the walls are painted in a light colour to reflect as much light as possible, and the decorations are small and sparse to take best advantage of the daylight.

Cuypers sometimes chose to make the building materials visible, such as the iron rivets in the ceiling arches – then, to improve the visual rhythm, he added a row of painted rivets.

These railings are made of wrought iron, which was a modern material at the end of the 19th century. Cuypers decided to use the material in the old-fashioned way, and had it forged by hand.