Museum Nagele

The village of Nagele is the icon of Het Nieuwe Bouwen. Discover the architecture of this unique village through the permanent exhibition on Nagele's design history at Museum Nagele. The museum is housed in a former church designed by the architects T. Taen and T. Nix. Besides this permanent exhibition, there are changing exhibitions in which architecture and visual arts play an important role.

With documentaries, animations, models and personal testimonies from residents and architects, the permanent exhibition tells about the modernist ideals with which the village was designed. One of the museum's masterpieces is the film 'A new village on new land' by Louis van Gasteren. This film shows the architects working on the design of Nagele and also follows the first inhabitants of the village. Sit back and watch these historical images for a better understanding of how the design came about and ánd how it was experienced by the first inhabitants.

When you visit the museum, you receive a guide booklet explaining the exhibition. Via various assignments in the guide booklet, you can also get to work yourself with the interactive elements of the exhibition, such as 'pasting' houses with magnetic strips according to the architects' insights. Young visitors are also catered for: children can design their own piece of polder in a special sandbox or get to work at the drawing tables.

The guidebook also includes a map of the village to help you explore Nagele for yourself. The village is of historical, socio-cultural and architectural significance, both nationally and internationally. Nagele is, in fact, the best-preserved example of the ‘Het Nieuwe Bouwen’ architectural movement. Famous architects from the architectural collectives ‘De 8’ and ‘De Opbouw’, such as Aldo van Eyck, Gerrit Rietveld and Mien Ruys, contributed to its design. By appointment, you can book a guided tour of the village through the museum to ensure you don’t miss a thing in this unique village.

The village of Nagele has very much preserved the atmosphere and appearance of its early years, as you can see when you walk through the village. But would you like to see what such a flat-roofed house looked like inside in the pioneering years? Then walk a few streets after your visit to Museum Nagele to Huis Polman, where you can experience for yourself what it was like to live here just after its construction, based on the 1950s-style furnishings. When visiting both Museum Nagele and Huis Polman, you benefit from a special combination rate.