Limburg, Noord-Brabant, Zeeland urge government to spread national museums more evenly

The provinces of Limburg, Noord-Brabant, and Zeeland are calling on the national government to distribute national museums and the funding to maintain national collections more evenly across the country. Because most national museums are concentrated in the Randstad, government funding largely flows there as well. According to Limburg deputy Jasper Kuntzelaers and Noord-Brabant deputy Bas Maes, this imbalance can only be addressed if each province is given its own national museum.

The provinces say they want The Hague to take their message seriously, especially with Parliament set to discuss the heritage budget next week. The national government spends more than 260 million euros annually on national museums, yet 24 of the 31 are based in the Randstad.

Provinces such as Noord-Brabant, Limburg, Zeeland, Groningen, and Drenthe are left without any national museum at all. Eindhoven is set to become an exception, as it will host a satellite location of the Amsterdam-based Rijksmuseum in the coming years.

Not a single euro of that cultural funding ends up in these five provinces, Maes says. “It shows that the distribution still does not automatically keep pace with the ambition to make culture of and for the whole of the Netherlands,” he argues.

After learning that Panorama Mesdag in The Hague is set to gain national museum status, the southern provinces took a closer look at the numbers. “When a new national museum is added, it happens in the Randstad,” Kuntzelaers says. “Panorama Mesdag is fantastic and certainly deserves to be preserved. But you can also think about how to distribute things more evenly.”

According to Maes, the regions south of the rivers also hold culturally significant collections that merit national status. Maastricht’s Bonnefanten showcases major works of visual art, the Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg tells the story of Zeeland, and the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch preserves the Van Gogh collection. Together, its paintings and letters offer insight into the formative years of Van Gogh’s artistic development in Brabant.

Kuntzelaers notes that people in Limburg now face a two-hour drive just to get to the closest national museum. Establishing a national museum in every province, he argues, would significantly lower the barrier for the public to access them.