Wachten, wachten

Waiting . . . waiting. Only two more sleeps.

The excitement in Amsterdam has been palpable in the past few months, as we all count down to the re-opening of the Rijksmuseum, the iconic national museum that invited the painters and decorators in ten years ago. Ten years. Really? That’s one year more than it took to build the thing.

There’s a part of me that can’t help wondering just how good I might look after a ten year restoration program. And a €375 million expense account.  I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had a one hour massage and a half hour facial on  two consecutive days over Easter.  I thought about following up with a pedicure on day three, but with temperatures still below 10^oC here, and a strong likelihood that I’ll be in boots for a while longer, I thought it a little self-indulgent. 

Anyway, for months now, the outside of the neo-Gothic Rijksmuseum has sported a huge, neo-digital clock, counting down to the neo-opening day and generating a level of anticipation that this country probably hasn’t seen since the ultimately devastating (from a Dutch perspective at least) World Cup Final of 2010. That ended in a 1-0 defeat of the Netherlands during extra time by their historical arch enemy, Spain (who appeared keen to avenge their loss of the lowlands in 1648 following the eighty years war. Eighty years. Talk about extra time!) To add insult to injury, the Dutch football team was subjected to accusations of foul play, bad sportsmanship and unseemly conduct.  Same thing happened in 1648. It makes it even funnier to me that a firm of Spanish architects won the tender for the restoration of the Rijksmuseum. Neo-attitude.

The clock pronounces “Nachten Wachten”, or nights waiting, a witty reference to the museum’s priceless centrepiece – Nachtwacht (The Night Watch) by Rembrandt. I remember staring at that clock for several minutes one day, grappling with a possible translation at a time when my repertoire of Dutch verbs would have numbered no more than twenty (it's now rocketed to about twenty three).  Suddenly I experienced a memorable linguistic lightbulb moment, realising that “wacht” could translate as either watch or wait. Nights waiting . . . Nightwatch.  I laughed out loud as I realised, quite smugly, that I had understood the irony, and I looked with pity at the passing tourists whose heads it must surely be going over.

 

Hence I retain a strange affection for the gaudy, neon hoarding. Of course, it signifies my coming of age as an unstoppable linguist, Antipodean expert in 17th century Dutch art and all-round aficionado of cultural wit. Setting that aside though, the clock  provides a taunting reminder of the inefficiencies of modern construction – the renovation commenced in 2003 and was expected to take three years, not ten.  Had the clock been counting upwards, marking the days since the museum closed in 2003, it would today announce something like “Jullie hebben gewacht: 3,400 nachten”. You have waited 3,400 nights. Thanks for your patience.

The renovation has been stymied throughout by the usual tendering controversies, some major asbestos problems, the resignation of the museum director, a misplaced hammer and the day to day challenges posed by tinkering with any building that has its foundations below sea level. It is rumoured that there was also a major disagreement on tile colours and floor coverings, in common with domestic renovations all over the world.

On top of all that, the project managers seem to have forgotten to account for the Dutch tendency to overleg. This broadly translates as “to consult”, but in the case of the renovated Rijksmuseum, translated instead to a seven year overrun.  The Dutch, bless them and their egalitarianism and tolerance of alternative views, have a tendency to widespread consultation on most matters, particularly administrative and professional.  This can be a fabulous thing, whereby a culturally ingrained openness to different opinions leads to a genuine meeting of multiple minds, a robust tussle of ideas and the generation of some amazingly innovative solutions. On the other hand, poor Ned Nederlander, my innately inclusive but efficiency-driven man, is regularly frustrated in his Dutch workplace by the need to grin and bear yet another round of suggestions and comments from a large number of colleagues and unsuspecting passers-by on something that really should have been done and dusted and at the printers last week.

In the case of the Rijksmuseum renovation, some eighty licences needed to be sought, all requiring considerable overleg.  Don’t ask me why those licences didn’t need to be sought, consulted on, modified, agreed and granted before construction began.  

There was another stereotypically Dutch sticking point in the whole Rijksmuseum project; bicycles. You see a cycle path has cut through the middle of the museum, via an elegant archway, ever since it was opened in 1885. The path was temporarily closed off during the renovations. I can’t imagine the outcry such a closure must have generated.  Nor can I imagine the clamour (nor the over-overleg) that ensued when it was announced a couple of years ago that, come to think of it, the cycleway would need to be permanently closed.  Even as a relative newcomer to this country, I know that some issues just aren’t worth “overlegging” about, because you’re simply never going to win. The preposterous suggestion that cyclists should be forced to ride a few hundred extra metres around the museum, instead of pedalling straight through it, is one such issue.



As the museum's Collections Director noted after the cycling lobby emerged victorious from the discussions, "The bicycle is folkloric in the Netherlands. Touch the bicycle, and you touch freedom." 

What I believe he really wanted to say, but didn't (probably because he lacked my insight into cultural wit) was "Amsterdam cyclists are the hub of this city, and they have generated a chain reaction that has forced us to find a bespoke solution to this controversy, meaning we have had to back-pedal on our plans to saddle people with an extended route around the rim of the museum".

So bicycles, that most beloved and undisputed Dutch icon will once more wheel along the path that bisects the Rijksmuseum.  I am so pleased. The cyclists, and the collisions with pedestrians that the museum’s director is convinced will occur, will be on exhibition for museum visitors to observe through renovated glass walls, in what I personally think will be a magnificent piece of constantly moving art, which could well become the Rijksmuseum’s greatest contemporary masterpiece.