Architecture | Tichelaar’s Makeover of The Groninger Museum

The Groninger Museum, which has exhibited modern and contemporary art in the Netherlands since 1874, has been in its current building since 1994.

Some renovation work was in order, however, in part because the colors on the laminate sheeting covering the building had started to fade in the sun. The museum tapped Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum to design a more permanent solution in the form of glazed ceramic plates. Alessandro Mendini, the architect and designer who worked on the 1994 project, came up with a new design for the tiles which had different forms and color combinations than the original laminate sheeting.

About 1,500 square meters of tile, which were individually 1,200 x 1,200 mm, were made for the project. The colors and patterns were applied using a silkscreen printing process. The solution should be a more permanent fix for the museum’s bright facade, because glazes typically aren’t discolored by UV light and similar environmental effects.

Above image: The Groninger Museum clad in tile designed by Alessandro Mendini and produced by Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum. Photograph courtesy of the ceramics company.

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