Contribution M:OED on Natural History Museum Maastricht (NHMM)

Domain meeting Economy and Culture, Maastricht City Council, 15 October 2024

M:OED is very enthusiastic about this plan to give the Natural History Museum a solid quality boost. It is a great example of how Maastricht can be strengthened in a balanced way. And it ties in – as is also described in the Board’s proposal – with two themes to which Maastricht is deeply committed: The origins of the earth and its plants and animals, but also the problems the city faces due to climate change and the need to make the city more green. Children and their parents often find dinosaurs and the origin of the earth very interesting; There is a large group of people for whom climate change and greening a very present-day topic; And if the museum is really made into something special, visitors to the city – even if the entrance is somewhat hidden – will also know how to find the museum. What will make the museum typically Maastricht is that it will not be a building like any other museum, but that there will again be a striking building in the middle of the city, of which people think ‘in Maastricht, it’s always more special’. So while the renovation must be good, it must not conceal the building’s special appearance behind plasterboards.

What remains underexposed in the plans is the possibility of making the museum also a meeting place for presentations and discussions on climate and greening. Just as the mural on Tongersestraat is our monument to freedom of speech, this building can become Maastricht’s monument to the earth and its life. But a living monument where people meet to discuss these issues. Thus, it becomes a museum where people with different interests can come together. It is not entirely clear from the documents which scenario is being proposed, but as far as we are concerned it will be the ‘high performance’ one: It should really be something special.

The cost of operation is treated very easily, it will be fixed internally, but we actually think that for success it is very important that there are also sufficient funds for operation. The nature museum in Tilburg and the natural history museum in Rotterdam are very similar. Both typically attract around 70,000 visitors a year. Their budgets are just (Tilburg) or well (Rotterdam) above two million euros a year. There is a kind of law that about 20% of a museum’s costs are covered by ticket sales. Usually one gets more than half in subsidies from the government and the rest comes from funds. So that means that for the NHMM too, at least a little over a million has to come from the municipality every year for its operation. For how much will come from funds is still unclear and we also hope that the museum will not be on the drip of the gambling industry. In the Netherlands, hardly any museum can support itself.

It says that funding will be solved internally, but does that mean that the budget will be taken away from the library?

In recent years, the library has had to cut back more and more on the space it has and, for us, on the budget left for it. A beautiful museum is worth a lot to us, but access for all to knowledge and culture at Centre Ceramique is even more important. Perhaps a library can do its job these days with fewer resources, and compared to other cities, the Maastricht library is very expensive, but it would be good to then also put explicitly on the agenda what we expect from a library and what they need for that. Explicit separate budgets for the two museums and the library would promote transparency.

A few points of a different order:

The memo keeps talking about storytelling. This has been a popular term lately, but it is also confusing.
The museum should not tell a story about dinosaurs but explain how things actually are. Of course, this may/should be done appealingly. In these days of fake news, we should not dilute that distinction. This is even more sensitive if the story is even told ‘about the impact of climate change and alternative energy (sources) on our environment’. It should be about what we know and what we don’t know. Not about a nice story.

The memorandum states that the NHMM is the only real family museum and is seen as a Maastricht pride. Maastricht also has the Museum of Illusions, and it is a pity if Maastricht’s development only looks at the municipality’s initiatives. Even the Bonnefantenmuseum is not mentioned, as if it is not ours. And besides, we need to broaden our horizons. As South Limburg, we face a big challenge together. Kerkrade has family museums and Heerlen is now working on renovating the Thermen Museum. In other words, we all have that together. We hope that, in due course, school classes from Maastricht will visit the Thermenmuseum and children from all over South Limburg will visit the Natural History Museum. And then many years later still thinking: that was a very special experience.

Kind regards, Lex