Nederlands Fotomuseum to open on 7 February
On February 7, 2026, the Nederlands Fotomuseum, the National Museum of Photography, will open its doors in the recently renovated Santos warehouse, a national monument located on Rotterdam's Rijnhaven.
With over 6.5 million objects, the museum has one of the largest museum collections of photography in the world. In this monumental building, cultural heritage, architecture, and a contemporary museum presentation come together to create an international meeting place for photography.
The monumental Santos warehouse was built between 1901 and 1902 by Rotterdam architects J.P. Stok Wzn and J.J. Kanters, and is one of the best-preserved and most beautiful examples of early 20th-century warehouse architecture. The building was originally designed as a storage facility for coffee from the Brazilian port city of Santos and has been listed as a national monument since 2000.
The opening in the Santos warehouse heralds a new chapter for the most important centre for photography in the Netherlands. In the nine-story state-of-the-art building—one of the best-preserved historic warehouses in the country—visitors will not only have access to masterpieces from the national collection, but also a unique glimpse behind the scenes in the open storage rooms and restoration workshops. This new museum houses the Gallery of Honour of Dutch Photography, temporary exhibitions and educational spaces. It also has a library with the largest collection of photo books in Europe, a darkroom, open studio spaces, a café and a restaurant with a panoramic view of the Rotterdam skyline. The move to Santos was made possible thanks to a generous donation from the Droom en Daad Foundation.
The collection and the studio spaces are located in the heart of the building, spread over two floors. Glass walls allow visitors to take a look behind the scenes: the open depots display a selection from the archive, together with special and remarkable objects from the collection, while the visitor can also see specialists at work on restoration and conservation in the studios.
The ground floor will be an inviting meeting place with a café, library, museum shop and reception desk. Visitors are welcome here even without a ticket and can walk in freely. In this ‘living room for photography’, they can meet each other, have a drink, read, and watch the short film that Photographer of the Netherlands Marwan Magroun (Rotterdam, 1985) made especially for the reopening of the Nederlands Fotomuseum.
Main Image: Copyright Photo Studio Hans Wilschut