Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum reopens

It's taken nearly a decade but the Rijksmuseum - the Netherlands' national museum - is finally ready to reopen. The jewel of its collection is Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" (1642). Both the original architect Pierre Cuypers in 1885 and the restoration team led by Cruz & Ortiz designed the whole building with the painting as the centerpiece.

In the original design, architect Pierre Cuypers included a bridge that allows the public to walk and cycle through the middle of the building. When the recent renovations called for closing the bridge, Amsterdam residents objected. The bridge stayed and now looks onto two giant atria that flood the ticket hall and cafeteria with natural light.

The Great Hall, with its terrazzo floor and stained glass windows is reminiscent of a cathedral. When the museum was first built, this was a problem for the Calvinist people of North Holland, who felt the design was far too Catholic. All the decorations that had been removed once Cuypers died in 1921 have been restored, painstakenly, by hand.

The Hall of Honor, its wings full of Golden Age paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Frans Hals, feels even more like a cathedral. King William III refused to set foot in the building for the official opening 1895 because he considered it too Catholic. Queen Beatrix is set to reopen the museum on April 13, 2013, one of her last official duties before she abdicates the throne on April 30.

The original library designed by Cuypers is also the largest public art research library in the Netherlands. Book, monographs and periodicals, both scholarly and popular, fill every inch of the shelves, which span four stories.

The library may be for research, but that doesn't mean it is only for adults. Nestled in among the academic journals and art sale catalogues is a small collection of books about art written for children.

The Rijksmuseum is a collection of Dutch history, arts and crafts - not just painting. To emphasize this, curators have juxtaposed the content of the galleries so that paintings, statuary and carved elk antlers work together to tell the story of the time in which they were created.

There are rooms in the main building that contain art from Japan, Suriname and other Dutch colonial outposts. New for 2013 is a specialized Asian pavilion that houses a small collection of kimonos and temple statuary.

Small, but beautifully formed - two of Vermeer's best works, "The Milk Maid" and "Woman in Blue Reading a Letter," hang in one of the side chapels that line the aisle to "The Night Watch." There is no direct lighting in the gallery and non-flash photography is allowed. Plenty of chance to go meta and make an image in the style of a Vermeer with an actual Vermeer.

Vermeer painted this kitchen maid around 1658. The bright blues and natural light streaming through the window are typical of his style. The mysterious look on the maid's face reminds the viewer of Mona Lisa. No matter how long we look, how close we stand, we can never quite know what she is thinking.

Media interest in the museum's reopening has been intense, with journalists coming from all over the world to have their minute in front of "The Night Watch." When the museum opens on April 13, it will allow the public to stay until midnight to make sure everyone gets a turn.